


Part Of Your World

by heimai



Category: Naruto
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, M/M, Mermaids, NaruSasu - Freeform, Pining, Romance, Romantic Comedy, ill add tags over time, look ok tbh its the little mermaid but sns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2020-02-29 23:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18788119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heimai/pseuds/heimai
Summary: Sasuke has made his decision; he has to escape the world of merfolk. It's been 7 years since Itachi tore their family apart in exchange for his legs, and Sasuke is determined to follow and get his revenge. All it costs? His voice, stolen by the sea witch. There's only one strange condition; if he falls in love, Orochimaru owns his soul. This should be easy. Even when that ever-fascinating human prince takes a liking to him, this should be easy... Right?





	1. Dancing, But Different

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's had writers block for 5 months: me! I realized I need to have some fun before I embark on another original heart-breaking story, loosen up a little, so I took one of my favorite stories and Naruto-ized it, you know?  
> Yes, I realize naming this fic Part Of Your World is cliche, and yes, I realize I'm writing another beach fic, I don't know how that happened
> 
> (Another thing: I promise, I promise there's no extreme angst in this one. Hopefully that doesn't give anyone whiplash from Something To Remember Me By, but I think most people will be thankful honestly)
> 
> I hope you like this start to the fic, and let me know if you want to see more! I'm really happy writing it, and I hope that comes across. Thank you!

“You’re not supposed to be up here, you know.”

Sasuke didn’t even open his eyes to the newcomer, just slapped his tail against the water hard enough to splash water into Suigetsu’s most likely smirking face. His warning was one Sasuke had heard many times over, and it didn’t hold a stone of weight. Whatever cloud had been floating across the sun passed, and warm light burst through.

“Come on, Sasuke, Tsunade would be so pissed if she found out.” Sasuke sighed, finally looking at Suigetsu. Suigetsu had a hand raised to his forehead, squinting against the sunlight. One arm was slung over the rock Sasuke was laying on. “And what’s the point in getting all dried out? You’re gonna turn into one of those sand dollars that get stranded on the beach. Could probably break you in half like this.”

“Really?” Sasuke said. “I recommend you try it.” Suigetsu rolled his eyes, but made no move. Maybe when they were younger, he would have hauled his body out of the sea and attacked Sasuke, but their friend group had a clear order. Unfortunately, Suigetsu wasn’t first. Or even second, actually.

He went silent instead, turning to follow Sasuke’s nearly unwavering gaze. Still squinting, he lowered his hand, and then let out a loud laugh, making the tiny green crab that’d been basking on Sasuke’s forearm scuttle back into the water.

“Oh, please, don’t tell me that’s why you’re out here.” Sasuke glared at him, which only made him laugh more.

“You sound like a seagull,” Sasuke told him, but Suigetsu only shook his head, white hair flicking water.

“I just can’t get over it. When Sasuke Uchiha isn’t breaking rules and plotting revenge, he goes all soft for the most average-looking surface-level man I’ve _ever_ seen.” Sasuke tried to turn the air cold with his increasingly darkening expression, but Suigetsu didn’t care. His eyes gleamed like a pair of fairy fish; green, red, blue. Mostly purple, though, and completely evil.

Sasuke opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t have to explain anything to Suigetsu. In truth, he didn’t really have a good excuse anyway. Leaning forward, tilting his head; the ship, _that_ ship, in the distance was almost out of view, disappearing in waves. He wondered where it was going, and he wondered when it would come home.

“I’m right, just admit I’m right.”

Sasuke’s reached out a webbed hand, slapping Suigetsu in the back of the head, and then pushed him into the water. “Try this for soft,” he growled, and Suigetsu could hardly laugh for the headlock he was in.

They sunk further under the waves. “Okay, I give up!” Suigetsu finally begged, still trying to wriggle free from Sasuke. “You’re not soft, I take it back.” Unconvincing, but Sasuke would accept it for now. He released Suigetsu, who pushed him away. “Sasuke, always so violent.”

Sasuke only turned with a swoop of his red-tipped fins, shooting through the water in a flurry of bubbles. Regrettably, Suigetsu was quick to follow.

“You’re like this volcano that everyone thinks is dormant, but I know better. You’re fit to really explode someday, Poseidon help us all.”

This was true. Sasuke didn’t open up, and he hardly spoke in the presence of most merfolk. He made them nervous, he knew that, and he made them whisper when he turned his back. After years, he was still being dragged through the rumor mill. It’d be foolish to think that he wouldn’t snap one of these days, however. He’d have plenty of reason to.

He put the thought aside for now.

He and Suigetsu made their way down, further and further from the surface, Suigetsu chattering all the way. The path they took was meant to be complicated to anyone else, but obvious to locals. Through a rangy seaweed forest, squeezing through an opening in a coral covered rock.

It scratched his shoulders on the way inside. That wouldn’t have happened a few years ago, but he’d been growing faster than algae lately. His brain would still be developing for a while still, but he was growing up like the rest of his family had; sometimes barely inching forward, and sometimes at breakneck speed.

“You’re not a pretty boy anymore,” Karin told him one day, braiding his hair as he read. “You’re more handsome.” Sasuke glanced up at the cracked mirror standing across the cavern from him. He didn’t like how the braid looked on him; it made him look more like his brother. For that reason, Sasuke didn’t let his hair go below his shoulder blades. He preferred it wild, pulled whichever way the tide desired, but letting Karin focus on his real hair kept her out of his metaphorical one.

The tunnel to their home was long and at times pitch black, but that was only to keep outsiders out. They knew better, swimming confidently through it. Eventually, they turned a corner, and a light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Sasuke let Suigetsu surpass him here. He wasn’t in any particular hurry to get back. And to what? An empty apartment with barely a belonging in it? Or maybe where he lived before, an empty house with a garden that refused to grow.

Everyone else’s homes were lit up with yellow and blue sunstones, front yards teaming with seagrass and sea anemone and the little fish that darted in and out. Sasuke’s old house wasn’t like that. It was as if the earth surrounding it knew what had happened there and died with everything else.

Finally, he swam through the gates, ignoring the guard on either side. Atlantica stretched out in front of him. Even tinged with bitterness, it was impossible to deny it’s beauty. A jumble of buildings followed complicated winding streets that had been built around the preexisting plant life. Tall apartments towered with the kelp, while tiny houses were tucked into the spaces in between. It was chaos, maybe, but so was the ocean, and it was a controlled chaos anyway.

In the center of the city was a palace, the true prize of Atlantica. It caught sunlight, sparkling sea glass almost blinding. Inside resided the queen, a woman of the greatest power the sea has seen. Sasuke didn’t know another royal that would challenge her.

She also made the laws they followed. Or that _most people_ followed.

Sasuke wouldn’t say that she hated him per se, but he was not and never would be her favorite citizen. It was probably about those laws. The ones he broke. Or maybe his complete lack of remorse at doing so.

He wasn’t in the mood to hear one of her speeches today; he grabbed Suigetsu’s arm before they went their separate ways, but Suigetsu rolled his eyes before Sasuke could even speak. “I’m no snitch. See you later.”

Well, not an intentional snitch, but Suigetsu had a mouth on him that could swim miles without breaking a sweat.

“Why is it you’re always sitting here in my office, Sasuke?” she would say to him. “Do you have a complete disregard for your own life?” An interesting question, one he didn’t know the answer to, but his main problem was more a disregard for authority.

Sasuke had only ever gotten sunburnt once, when he was 14 and he’d fallen asleep on his side in the middle of a sweltering August day. Tsunade had gone completely ballistic. It was one thing for his skin to have tanned, but burnt?

He mostly found her anger funny, until she’d point her finger in his face. “This better not be about your brother. Some plot you have.” His smirk would fade at the mention of that man, and then: “Or about that _boy_. Are you a complete idiot, Sasuke?” The mention of his brother and the fact that Tsunade even knew about _that boy_ was easily enough to sour his mood.

So, a complete idiot, no. Though… He tilted his head, to stare up at the surface far above him.

Possibly an idiot occasionally.

He swam along, mostly keeping his head down. If Tsunade’s booming voice hadn’t found him yet, it probably wouldn’t today. The doors to the lobby of his building opened easily, as they should, but his apartment door opened the same way. Damn it.

“Sasuke! You’re finally home.”

“Stop breaking into my apartment.” Of all the human things that had dropped to the ocean floor that Karin had found, that little red thing with all the tools in it was the worst. He swam past her to look in his kitchen. Of course, his little planter of spinach and basil were doing fine, as well as all the trench seeds he’d picked the day before, but only one tiny herring was swimming around in his tank. Surrounded by the bones of his friends, of course, which was pretty fucked up.

“I _hate_ you,” Sasuke growled, turning on Karin, who had one of said bones between her teeth. She simply ignored him, adjusting her glasses. He hated that; she was always touching those stupid glasses. She didn’t even need them, they were only the frames. He swam closer to slap her head, but then noticed what she was doing. Reading, and from a book he’d never seen before. “What’s that?” he asked, swimming in a tight curve to look over her shoulder.

“I was wondering when you’d notice,” she said, turning a page. “I swam around the sea beds today. There was so much stuff down there, you wouldn’t believe. A bunch of those tiny tridents or whatever, but also the biggest time face I’ve ever seen. I had to get Juugo to haul it back for me. Most of it I hid away, but this one was far too interesting.”

Sasuke peered at the pages. In big letters, at the top. He worked the word around in his mouth before saying it. “ _Wal… Waltz. Learning to waltz_ ”

“Waltz?” He nodded. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Sasuke reached over her shoulder, turning the page for her. There was a picture; two humans, in a strange position. They were very close. The taller short-haired one stretched their leg backwards, white the one in long flow-y clothes leaned into their arms, a pointed foot appearing from underneath their skirt. The first one was supporting the second, keeping them up. They were looking at each other.

“Are they dancing? They’re so close to each other.”

Sasuke pointed to a watery word. “ _D-A-N-C-I-N-G. Dancing._ Yes.”

“That’s not how we dance at all.” In traditional merfolk dancing, it was a group event. There was spinning and twisting from partner to partner, arms hooked around each other and hands clasped. But it was never slow like this, never so close, never two people.

“Humans are strange creatures,” Sasuke murmured.

“I don’t know. I think it’s kinda hot.” Sasuke flicked her ear hard, and Karin scratched his arm.

That was another thing merfolk didn’t seem to do the same as humans; there was a lot of quick touches. If you were annoyed, you might slap or bite someone. If you were sad, you would push your forehead against their shoulder or lightly pull their hair, and if you were happy, well, you might has well body slam them into the reef. If you love someone, holding onto their wrist with the slight dig of fingernails was usually the way to say so.

So mermaids touched often, yes, but not like how humans did. Not all slow like that.

...Maybe it was kind of hot.

Sasuke reached out and snapped the book shut, pulling it from her hands. “Hey!” Karin scrambled for it, but Sasuke held it away from her.

“You can’t even read it, Karin,” he reminded her, which made her huff.

“Translate it?”

“Might take a couple days, considering how many of my little fish you ate.” She groaned and flicked her tail, heading towards the door.

“I swear, mermen from the big families have no sense of humor.”

“They also have no dinner apparently. Get out of my apartment.” She stuck out her tongue and slammed the door behind her.

Night was falling on Atlantica. The lamps were going to light up soon, which meant if he wanted back out, he’d have to hurry. It was the glorious 10 minutes of darkness between sunset and sunstones. That was his escape.

Getting past the guards was easy enough. He’d found his own crack in the walls of the city. It was hard to fit his shoulders and hips through, but it was inconspicuous to the public. A little bit of slightly undignified wiggling, and out he popped.

He held the book close to his side. Most nights, he might head to his secret cavern where he and Karin and Juugo kept all of the human things that they stole or collected. He wanted to see the big time face (or clock, as he was pretty sure they were called), but it was a full moon and the surface was calling to him sweetly. Sasuke prided himself on self-control, but this was his one vice.

This time of night the air is a little cooler but still comfortable; it was sweeter than even the bluest sea water flowing through his gills in his opinion. The moon was becoming closer and closer in his vision, the cold sun, and he sped towards it.

He broke from the water and- _Oh shit._

Sasuke dove back down, staying close to the rocks. There was a ship much, much closer than he’d thought there’d be at this time of night. He caught his breath; humans, so unpredictable, and so capable of murdering him on sight.

He could hear, though; music. And then a laugh, a bright, familiar one. Sasuke’s eyes widened, and he let his body float towards the surface. He stayed in the shadow of the cliffs, but studied the boat closer. Familiar, too, very much so.

It wasn’t the biggest boat in the harbor, but certainly the most regal. All shining red wood, tall sails, and the name painted on the side; Kurama. Sasuke had no idea what that word meant, but he’d said it many times trying to get the sounds right. “ _Kur-a-ma_.” He was fairly sure he was correct.

Sasuke had clearly been unnecessarily afraid; Naruto wasn’t paying attention to him at all. He was laying on his back, peacefully strumming the sound strings of an instrument and pointing out constellations to his dog.

“See, that’s Perseus,” he said, “and that’s, um… Lynx, I think?” Sasuke hoisted himself back onto the flat rock he'd claimed as his own, curling his tail underneath him. The dark sky had bloomed, unfurling petals revealing it’s most precious treasures.“That one. It’s the bear one, I don’t remember the name.”

“ _Ursa major_ ,” Sasuke whispered under his breath, “ _idiot_.”

He laughed, as if he had heard Sasuke. “Iruka would hate it if he knew I couldn’t remember. He’s tried so hard to teach me these. I don’t know why. Maybe because they’re pretty.”

Sasuke wrinkled his nose. _No, it’s because they’re a map and a teller of time, always available if you look up._ Pretty, maybe, but he’d seen many more brilliant lights underneath the surf. Humans were always so easily impressed.

“Sakura is probably going to yell at me for being out so late. She worries too much.” Sasuke settled his book on his lap. Maybe Sakura was to Naruto as Tsunade was to him; always worried sick. He opened up the pages and wiped the water out of his eyes, trying to find what Karin had shown him again.

It was much better in the moonlight. He tuned out the one-sided conversation with the dog for a moment. He put one finger on the edge of the page to hold it down, and lifted his arm slightly. Karin would laugh at him; Sasuke looked over his shoulder, nervous at being caught, but he was alone for now. He lifted it higher in front of him, splaying his fingers out, the way the taller one did to support their partner. Then moved his hand so it looked like the shorter one’s, holding on. He wasn't sure which part he was supposed to take.

He could probably pick this waltz up pretty quickly. A slight smile wandered onto his face. Then his tail flicked, and it left.

No, he couldn’t pick it up. Not at all. His eyes fell to the pointed toes, the long legs. They were so different from himself, his wide black fins and diamond scales. The book fell shut. Sasuke hastily quelled the deep feeling of want that was bubbling up inside him.

It was hard to. Even if the heat of desire left, the aching remained.

“That one, right there. That’s Hercules. He’s a hero, from old stories and stuff. Kind of a weird guy, but I think he was pretty courageous…” The voice faltered, and the music stopped for a moment. “I guess… I guess that’s going to have to be me someday, huh?” Sasuke looked up a Hercules as well, but felt no similar kinship. Heroes are few and far between, if they even exist at all. "Someday..."

Sasuke couldn't help but roll his eyes. He could almost quote this whole speech; Prince Naruto and his royal angst. For the time Sasuke had spent keeping an eye on this boat from beneath the waves, Naruto has always feared being king. How old were they when Naruto finally learned of his own importance? 10? Regardless, Sasuke had been here and done that. Oceanus knows how much worse the whining was going to get after Naruto was actually crowned.

The strumming picked up again. “Well, I guess it’s not the hero part I’m worried about. I could rescue anyone- I rescued you, after all, Gamakichi.” The dog let out a small sleepy growl, and Sasuke’s fingers curled around the book. He could only see the top of Naruto's head, his messy blonde hair. “It’s the rest of it. Of being a royal. The paperwork and the fancy clothes and the dancing.”

The dancing? This sparked Sasuke's interest. He glanced down at the book again; fingers tracing the gold lettering.  _Did he…_ Maybe Naruto knew how to dance like that, waltzing and all that. All close and slow and _human_.

_When Sasuke Uchiha isn’t breaking rules and plotting revenge, he goes all soft for the most average-looking surface-level man I’ve ever seen._

_Fuck._ Sasuke slid into the water; he should be sleeping, not revisiting his empty childhood fantasies of what life could be like up there. That 10 year old him, perhaps his curiosity could be excused, but Sasuke was growing much too old for this.

All this emotion, the yearning for the human world, was probably just because the anniversary of _that_ event was coming up. _Regardless, it was a mistake to come out here tonight._

He must have been a touch too loud. “Did you hear that?” Sasuke ducked into the shadows again. A hazy shape, blue and gold, peered into the water. For a long moment, Sasuke had thought he’d been caught, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. “Must be a fish or something.”

He sat back on his legs, probably looking at his reflection; it still felt like Naruto was looking right at Sasuke, frozen in place. Sasuke had no idea what he would do if he ever actually caught Naruto's gaze.

The spell broke quickly, with the decision to head back to shore, but it was enough to make Sasuke’s heart pound. He ignored that, as it was perfectly useless to him.

Still, even surrounded by boundless blue… The specific color of those eyes he never seemed to get used to. They were more interesting than any book, than any trinket, and Sasuke wanted to bring him closer.

And, see, that was the problem. Sasuke was stuck swimming in circles around where he so desperately wanted to be but was never able to touch. But Naruto walked freely. It was unfair, he couldn’t help thinking. Yes, unbearably so, that he would never be part of that world.


	2. Suggestions and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is the only thing humans are better than merfolk at?
> 
> Drowning.
> 
> He’d decided not on his watch. Not with this human, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished my last final 2 hours ago and I'm perishing!! Anyway: new chapter! I'm really just having fun with this fic (meaning don't think too hard about mermaid logistics, I relying on Disney logic)... Next chapter, things really pick up, I promise. Thanks for reading!

Sasuke tilted his head. Light filtered in from the small opening at the top of the steep and rough walled secret cavern where he and his friends kept their treasures, making the wood of the time face shine. Or clock, but Karin and Juugo’s ignorance of the human language would rub off on him from time to time. Clocks were time faces, forks were little tridents, and anything they didn’t quite have a name for were whatzits and thingamabobs and whatever else.

Karin was right. This was a very tall time face, taller than Sasuke even. It was most likely laying on it’s side now, the long ways, but he couldn’t really blame Juugo for not knowing. Humans seemed to be so proud of their bipedal appearance that they’d design things after themselves. 

Anything winged, tailed or four-legged were lowly beasts to them, which Sasuke found ridiculous. They all tore food with their teeth, yes?  _ We run and we fight and we hate. _ Either they were all animals or none of them were.

This tall time face was in the strangest shape. It was carved wood, very shiny, but it looked like it had little clawed feet and horns at the top. Maybe it was designed after an animal of some kind. The face had the typical arrows and numbers. Inside, surely, were all those metal pieces. Sasuke couldn’t make sense of them, so he didn’t try anymore.

Different from all the other time faces were the tall compartment in the center. The glass was broken of course, but Sasuke reached and touched the golden tubes inside. It looked like a big pan flute. 

Whenever there were connections between the human world and the merfolk one, Sasuke felt some sense of accomplishment, but never true satisfaction. He could feel around and read the words, but he had no idea how this clock moved or sounded. Everything was incomplete.

He sighed. Enough of that for today. He swam over to sort through whatever else Karin had brought over. It was mostly some old looking books that were hardly read. The titles were horrible to look at; long words, hard to pronounce. He mostly just called them  _ ologies _ , because that’s what they always ended with. 

One of them was face down, pages all bent. Sasuke picked that one up;  _ Anthropology _ , whatever the fuck that meant. It opened to a bookmarked page, which Sasuke smoothed back into place. But, there, written on the side:  _ this is the most boring shit I’ve EVER read _ .

Sasuke blinked, and flipped to a new page. This time there seemed to be a conversation between the chicken scratch from before and a new, neater script.

_ Hey what are you doing later _

_ Shut up and read _

_ Can’t, too boring _

_ Some of us want an education _

_ And some of us want a snack!! _

The conversation ended there, and he had to squint to make some of it out as the ink faded.  _ Huh.  _ He wondered who had owned this book. Maybe the other books had some more secret messages. Sasuke picked out a new one (another ology) and it fell open easily.

There was an envelope tucked between the pages. It was pure white; it looked new.  _ Rejected Headshots _ , it said, which made absolutely no sense to Sasuke. Rejected, he knew, was to push away. Head was the part of the body with the brain inside, and shot was the past tense shoot, like with a gun. Headshot... This could end up being gory? He opened it up with interest.

Photographs fell out into his hands, and Sasuke made a noise of surprise.

He recognized him instantly, all blonde and blue; it was Naruto. He flipped to the second, the third; Naruto. Most of them, he was making funny faces, tongue out or fingers pulling down his eyelids. In a few, he was just smiling widely, like he’d just heard the best joke ever told.

Sasuke brought one of the smiling photos closer to his face. He’d never really been able to see Naruto like this, face to face. It was always Naruto standing above him, king that he was, blocking out the sun and leaving Sasuke in shadow. Now, however, he saw Naruto like a human might.

His eyes were shockingly blue, more so than Sasuke had thought before. Naruto's hair was horribly messy but looked soft, too. His teeth were white and flat, unlike Sasuke’s pointed ones. His clothes were unusual. It looked heavy on his frame, and much too grown up, with wide shoulders and gold ropes hanging from them. Traditional royal wear, perhaps? Whatever it was, it made Naruto look small within it.

Sasuke cracked a smile at this. He touched the photo, traced the curve of Naruto's face, neck, shoulder, and then pulled away sharply. Thinking about Naruto too much always made him feel odd. He flipped around the photo; there was writing on the back of this one.

_ You look six years old with that smile! What suitor is going to marry a six year old???  _ in the same neat script as before.

_ Suitor. _ Sasuke felt his chest tighten slightly. He was fairly sure he knew what that word meant, but maybe he was mistaken. 

He put the book down on a rock, leaving the envelope poking out as a marker. Among the many, many books stacked on the floor, there had to be a dictionary or two. Sasuke swam to the one that looked most promising, finger trailing down spines, until he found the thick red book. He gently pulled it out, carefully, as not to disturb the others.

_ Suitor _ , right there between  _ suite _ and  _ sulk _ . 

_ A person who pursues a relationship with another, with a view to marriage. _

Sasuke huffed and rolled his eyes. He slid the book back into place. It had been stupid to look up the word; there had never been a word he’d looked up that he hadn’t instantly memorized. He tugged the envelope out of the book again, and his chest only tightened more. 

Naruto was looking to get married, then. Sasuke didn’t care, not really. It was just another mundane happening in a human life, and frankly none of his business, but it did feel as though a small piece of him that had been crumbling for a long while was in it’s final moments. The feeling of being young.

And there was something else amiss, too. Sasuke didn’t care, he didn’t at all, but some sharp pain had pricked his heart...

Sasuke shook his head, long hair floating around him almost in self defense. He waited in the darkness for the hurt to go away, hiding in a splotch of ink like octopi do. He closed his eyes. It was too soon to the anniversary, the one that always made him this way, but it would pass.

And it did, like it always did, but when Sasuke blinked and brushed his hair back down, he wasn’t alone.

Close, too close; the wide smiles of twin eels, glowing yellow eyes and teeth like rows of jagged spears. Sasuke pressed back against the wall of the cavern, hissing fiercely, but the pair only barred their teeth back in a grin. Light danced off their scales, lighting the cave a sickly green.

“Poor child,” one of them purred, voice scraping through its throat, “poor sweet child.” Sasuke growled again, a harsher warning, and the two backed off, though only slightly. 

“He has a very serious problem,” the other drawled in return, and their eyes flicked downwards. Sasuke followed their gaze to where the photos had spilled from their envelope. Naruto’s bright smile clashed with the eels. Sasuke scooped them back into place and held them closely, safe from the intruders.

“If only…” it continued. “If only there were something we could do.”

“Fuck off,” Sasuke cut in. “I know who you bottom feeders are. Not interested.”

They were minions, of course, hence the matching scaly voices, the ominous in-unison lines, the creepy appearance. And minions of Orochimaru, no less. Legend says that Orochimaru used to be a good friend of Queen Tsunade, but grew power hungry to the point that he was banished for the safety of the other citizens.

Usually people are lured to him by these henchmen, promising that he can make their dreams come true or some shit. Legend also says that if he doesn’t wish to be found, you never will. If he does, the path to his laboratory is all too easy.

“Don’t be scared,” the first cooed, and Sasuke scoffed. As if the two could scare him. No cheap henchman of the sea witch could even ruin his day so much as lay a fin on him. “We represent someone who can help you.”

“I know who you represent, and the only time I’ll see that pond snake is in hell.”

“Pond snake!” They both laughed. “I thought you much too smart to underestimate ancient powers.”

“And I thought I put out traps to catch the vermin, but maybe not, because here you are.”

“Sakon.” Their tone was more distasteful. “And my brother Ukon.”

“Don’t care.” Sasuke swam through them. Even just the water around them was icy.

“Wait,” one whispered after him, slimy like seaweed, “don’t you want to know how you could be with him? Your prince charming?” Sasuke stopped cold, and the eel chuckled. “Thought so.”

“No,” Sasuke corrected them, “he’s nothing like that to me. You’re stupid if you think Naruto would be any kind of motive for me to stoop to Orochimaru’s level.”

“And yet you’re on a first name basis with this man? Interesting.”

“And look how he’d clutching those photos, like some lovesick child.” Sasuke loosened his grip without thinking, and then hated himself for it.

He hissed again, long, low, and pointed for the crack in the rock wall. “Get out. Leave me alone.”

“Suit yourself,” an eel said, the one named Sakon. “It was only a suggestion!” They pushed past him hard, knocking his photos to the ground again. Their laughter echoed as they left, and Sasuke had half a mind to eat eel for dinner… No, even getting remotely involved with Orochimaru the sea witch would be trouble.

Instead, he turned tail, still holding the photos and trying to put their offer out of their mind. Sea witches, always meddling in his life. It wasn’t Orochimaru, but another, after all, that made his offer to his brother and destroyed… Well, everything.

Sasuke shakes his head. No matter. He presses his favorite photos to the back of his neck, smoothing his thick hair over them and letting them stick there. Getting caught with those would be essentially suicide: death by Tsunade.

Once he was back in his apartment, he pried up a floorboard and stuffed the photos underneath. Under the board was where he kept any treasures he wanted especially safe; books and trinkets with significance, even though he was somewhat loathe to feel such a connection to material objects.

Nearly the moment he was finished, Suigetsu slapped the door down with Juugo in tow. Sasuke was glad that they hadn’t seen him with the photos. He suffered enough ridicule at their hands for his “crush”, he didn’t need to give them the extra evidence. Suigetsu begged Sasuke to go out to the seabeds to treasure hunt, with Juugo making wide imploring eyes in the background. 

Eventually, Sasuke gave in, but the photos were in the back of his mind until he returned home for the evening. Still there as he ate dinner, still there as he brushed the tangles out of his hair, and still there, especially as he laid awake in bed, unable to sleep.

Naruto’s life was spent on the sea, as far as Sasuke was concerned. He’d seen too many milestones play out on Kurama. Birthdays and holidays, the first time Naruto had mourned a death, but the one he was stuck on was Naruto’s first kiss.

It was a strange event to witness, made him feel for the first time like his constant observation was intrusive, or maybe even creepy? 

He’d only known it was Naruto’s first kiss because he’d announced it loudly and nervously, which would have been funny if Sasuke hadn’t been so focused on the sudden aching in his stomach. He was 13 years old, and had just gotten over a flu, he could remember, but he felt horribly sick again like it had returned.

It was a girl who he’d kissed. She had huge eyes, light and clear, and her hair was so black it was almost dark blue in the moonlight. Sasuke had never, ever given a shit about his appearance, but he suddenly found himself hesitantly touching his hair before he yanked his hands away. Still, the thought remained; he really didn’t look much like her, did he?

Sasuke rolled over in bed with a huff. It didn’t matter. Naruto’s kiss, and now the suitors, none of it mattered. Naruto was growing up; of course he’d be having experiences like this. Sasuke probably would, too. If he wanted to. If half his peers got over admiring him from a distance while the other half got over their fear.

He wanted to pull out the photos again, but stopped himself. Instead he rolled over again and shut his eyes tightly to the water and the rock walls that built his home. 

Eventually, finally, he drifted away, but still, he dreamed, and he couldn’t control that nearly as well as his thoughts. Because of that, when he woke up, he was already angry. “Shut  _ up _ ,” he said to the cracked mirror in his bathroom, pointing at it so violently it almost cracked again. “Shut up with these thoughts, trying to get close to him. Are you an idiot?”

As it turned out, just this once, he wasn’t.

It all started with a storm. A wild one, not uncommon, but this time it was dangerous in a way Sasuke had only experienced once before, and that’s because Naruto left that morning. The storm began, whirling and howling. Naruto didn’t return.

Sasuke had tried to forget about it and just leave his rock to head home (darkness was closing in) but he couldn’t. Something in his gut was telling him that Naruto was in grave trouble, and maybe the only person who could get him out was Sasuke. Because  _ of course _ it was only Sasuke.

Everything after that realization was split-second choices. Swim, fast, then faster than ever before, because there was that gut feeling ever present; something was fatally wrong. Dodging driftwood, creatures of the deep, anything, until he found what he was looking for; an unconscious boy floating just under the surface of the waves, hair like the delicate petals of sunflowers stained red with blood.

Sasuke’s chest nearly caved at this sight, but he wouldn’t give up so easily. The memory, the one he usually pushed down, swam with Naruto to open air. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this...

And, now, he was almost beached, in the middle of a rain storm, nearly crushing a waterlogged prince into the sand. This, this was certainly forbidden. That was the thought at the back of his mind. But was Sasuke supposed to just watch him die? It had nothing to do with liking Naruto, it was an act of mercy. Sasuke thought of the old merfolk joke:

_ What is the only thing humans are better than merfolk at? _

_ Drowning. _

He’d decided not on his watch. Not with this human, anyway.

Naruto was bruised and bleeding in several different places, but finally he was starting to cough up sea water. Relief. He was breathing. Sasuke gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him over so he could spit onto the sand instead of himself. It was fortunate that Sasuke had never put this man on too high a pedestal because this was truly a sorry state to see.

Finally, he seemed to be regaining consciousness, once his retching brought up nothing. He fell back onto wet sand with a groan. “Ow.” Sasuke rolled his eyes.  _ Ow? _ Still, if he was talking, he was alive.

Naruto opened his eyes, staring up at the dark sky, still squinting as tears cleaned the salt from his eyes. His chest was still heaving, and he looked utterly lost. There were no stars to be seen in the sky, only turmoil. Frightening, to a human, maybe.

And it was then that Sasuke realized; Naruto’s eyes. Open. Seeing. Potentially seeing things he shouldn’t be allowed to. Sasuke all but slapped his hand harshly over Naruto’s face, making him yelp.

“What the f-”

“Don’t look at me,” Sasuke warned, voice colder than the water lapping at his tail. “Look at me and you die.”

“Good god, okay!” Naruto shouted over the wind, and then mumbled lower: “Kind of funny coming from the man who just saved me but whatever I guess.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes again but didn’t remove his hand. “I mean it.”

“I believe you.” Naruto’s voice was low and annoyed, rough with salt, but losing it’s edge with a long sigh. “I’m so…” He groaned, lifting a hand halfway to his head and then letting it drop. “I’m so confused. I’m barely sure that you’re real.”

Sasuke tilted his head. He had no interest in being the merfolk that ruined the well-kept secret of their existence.

“No, I’m not real,” Sasuke said, which only made Naruto laugh.

“Okay, no, you can’t fool me like that. Besides, I recognize your voice.” Sasuke felt a bolt of shock. Is it possible… Did Naruto remember him?

Like he’d thought before, Naruto is daring, but one who tests fate so frequently is bound to feel it’s wrath. Years ago, when they were both only just teenagers (fourteen, maybe?), Naruto had fallen and hit his head hard. It knocked him out, alone on his boat, and he slipped soundlessly into the sea.

Sasuke, of course, had seen this. It shocked him, to see a body plunge into the water directly beside him. Naruto was suddenly so close in a way he never had been before.

His forehead was dripping blood from the wound he’d received, and it was seeping into the water. Sasuke could already smell it; distinctly human, hot and salty. And if Sasuke could smell it, so could every carnivorous creature in a five mile radius. 

That day, he’d all but thrown Naruto onto the rocks of the jetty and raced away. The threat of discovery by humans was enough, but being close to Naruto had made him feel embarrassed somehow. The memory had bothered him for a while, too, made him itch. He was older now, so it had faded (or so he liked to think), but still, he remembered.

“I…” Sasuke didn’t know what to say to that. “I think you’re mistaken.” He couldn’t even remember saying anything to Naruto on that night.

“No, I don’t think so. Your voice, all low and worried. I know it, from somewhere.”

_ Fuck. _

“We disagree then.”

“I guess we do, huh?”

Silence. Naruto was smiling slightly between small coughs, and Sasuke was captivated by it. Naruto’s face was still bleeding, but it had mostly dried where his lips parted, bright fiery red fading into deep crimson at the corner of his mouth and on his chin. Dried blood, he never saw that. Bursts of red like smoke after gunshots, instantly swept away into the sea, but this red was truly different. It was hard to resist tracing it.

“Well,” Naruto said finally, “you sound like you’re probably hot. You sure I can’t look?” What…? What was Naruto saying? Trying to trick him, probably. Sasuke grit his teeth against his embarrassment

“You swallowed too much water. It’s making you stupid.”

Naruto shook his head, and then winced at the pain. “Sakura would say I’m  _ always _ stupid,” grumbled Naruto. “I don’t think hitting my head is really going to knock anything out of place that hasn’t already been knocked, you know?”

Sasuke paused. That might be true; for all the time he had spent studying Naruto, smart had never particularly come to mind. Happy, maybe. Brave, almost certainly. Smart? Not even a little bit.

“You’re so fucking strange,” Sasuke said quickly with a huff.

“Ugh, tell me about it. You and the rest of Konoha are in agreement.”

The town started down and up the beach a ways. Sasuke had never been able to see much beyond the first row of the buildings, but up on a hill was the palace where Naruto lived. It stood strong and still, like nothing in the ocean ever could. Everything was moving, always, that’s how Sasuke had always lived. All of Konoha would find him odd, too.

“Why did you save me?” 

Naruto was waiting for an answer. So much about him was human, a genetic difference that kept kept them strongly separated, but Sasuke knew his eyes were ocean blue underneath his palm. So familiar, like waking up to the crash of waves. Human, yes, but pleasantly so. He was different from Sasuke, not like fire and ice, but rather like the scales of one fish to another.

“I don’t know,” he lied. “My body moved on it’s own, I can’t explain it.” For so long, Naruto had been a distant figure, but now Sasuke was feeling that deep itch again, the one he’d managed to ignore for so long...

Sasuke’s tail slapped against the surface of the water, making a clapping noise that scared them both. Naruto seemed to perk up at that noise. 

“What…” His hands lifted finally, touching Sasuke’s ribs, and then trailing down his sides to where his tail began. His fingers slid over Sasuke’s scales, and Sasuke couldn’t help but growl. He pulled his hand back quickly. “What are you?”

He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, was feeling shaky from touch, which almost never happened, when he heard a shout. Then another, and then lanterns.

Sasuke had to go. He pulled up until a hand behind his neck pulled him back. “Thank you, for saving me. I knew I didn’t make you up,” Naruto told him, voice fading out before the end of the sentence in an effort to bring his quiet voice some kind of authority. “I  _ know _ I didn’t.” Sasuke shook off his touch. With the voices drawing closer, he couldn’t stay. Time was up. Sasuke braced himself, shoulders bunching. 

“Hey. We’ll meet again, okay? Someday,” Naruto told him. He sounded so sure of himself, Sasuke’s first urge was to believe him, but he pushed away quickly, too fast for Naruto to see anything, he hoped. 

He waited, just to make sure that Naruto was found, and then raced away through the water. That had been close, much closer to truly getting caught than any merfolk he knew had experienced; his heart was racing. 

Seeing Naruto get picked up by medics, by his worried friends, just showed how different the worlds they lived in are. Any one of those people would probably want Sasuke killed and stuffed to display on a wall. To be fair, any merfolk would happily hold Naruto under the waves until he drowned and then let the creatures of the sea have their way with him. So, it would never work.

It didn’t seem to stick. Sasuke said it out loud this time. “It would  _ never _ work.” 

The moment after he spoke, a small noise emanated from the rocks beside him. A little gasp, and then a sound like someone had slapped a hand over their mouth. Sasuke stopped in his glide back home, and turned, slowly.

Of course, of all people to witness him, it had to be Konohamaru. Tsunade’s pet, really, and a guard in training who had evidently gotten the midnight shift. Sasuke didn’t even have to ask; just staring Konohamaru down through his little hide-y hole in the rocks was enough. He’d seen everything.

“You didn’t see anything.” The words came out before he could think of anything more graceful, but they’d do. “You didn’t see a single thing.”

“But-”

“Hi, Konohamaru. It’s me, an god damn Uchiha. Do you know what Uchihas are known for?” This was kind of a cruel trick, relying on stereotypes, but all the villagers used it against him, so why not benefit from it now? “Do you understand me?”

The young guard swallowed. “Uh-m, well, yes-”

“Then it’s sorted.” Sasuke slapped him hard on the back, making him choke. “Thanks, Kono.”

“N-no problem,” Konohamaru said in return, fear still apparent on his face.  _ Good. As it should be.  _ Sasuke returned to swimming back. He had things to focus on other than would-be snitches.

For a moment, he considered going home.  _ Home _ home, his first one. The anniversary was tomorrow, after all. He changed his mind at the last minute. There was no doubt that tomorrow all his feelings on the subject would strike; no point in giving them a head start. 

He squeezed through the rocks and snuck back into his apartment. He ignored the photos under the floorboard just as he did thoughts of his brother, but he spent a minute staring at it, remembering the events of the night in brutal, beautiful detail. His dreams were confusing, but good; better than they usually were this time of year. He had Naruto to thank, he supposed...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter probably in a couple weeks? Stay tuned!


	3. A Poor Unfortunate Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was going to make Itachi pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! THANK YOU to whinyskeleton for commissioning me for this chapter!! sometimes I just need a burst of inspiration to write and I'm really glad I got it! 
> 
> I'm feeling nervous about this chapter, mostly because there are many changes in settings, which is a big difference from Oceanview (prev. fic). I'm doing my best though, so I hope you enjoy! I really hope you enjoy me shamelessly stealing lines from the movie and pretending to know about fish...

It wasn’t afternoon yet, and Naruto was already giving Sasuke heart palpitations. He wasn’t even present, besides being ever-present in the back of Sasuke’s head. This was getting ridiculous.

It started when Sasuke woke up from whatever dream he’d been having. A good one, that much was obvious. He’d opened his eyes to the rough ceiling, to the steady hum of a city waking up, and felt… good. Good like he wasn’t supposed to be able to feel on this specific day.

Sasuke had stared hard in the mirror, at his black hair a tangled mess and eyes pleading for the answer to this phenomenon. Then his eyes dropped to his waist. One hand lifted, crossing his stomach to brush against his ribs, and then down to stop at his hip where black scales began, like Naruto had touched him. He couldn’t get that out of his mind; he was sure it had been in his dream. When was the last time anyone had touched him so softly? Not for many years.

He drew his hand back, feeling embarrassed. Just one little touch from Naruto seemed to render him loathe to think of anything else. He couldn’t help but wonder… Was Naruto like that with everybody? He shook his head, trying to get off this train of thought. 

Naruto probably hadn’t thought twice about him. 

Except, that he had. Idiot.

Sasuke had gone to the rock he always ended up on, expecting to find his usual sunny spot but instead he found a little wooden box, wedged into a crevice of the rock. Curious, he’d cocked his head, pulling it from its place. It was tiny, as it had almost escaped his view. On the lid there was an etched message in familiar chicken scratch; _Thank y-_

The box was thrown open before he could even finish reading the two words. Out onto the rough rock dropped a necklace. Stung on black cord, it was a blue gem, just a little smaller than Sasuke’s thumb. Sasuke was stunned. He held it up to the light, staring. The color of Naruto’s eyes, almost exactly. There’s no way Naruto could have known how special that would be, but… Sasuke pressed it to his chest. Naruto had been thinking about him, one way or another.

He pulled his hair up to clasp it behind his neck. It tangled in the wisps at the nape of his neck, but he didn’t mind. Sasuke just kept staring down at it shine in the sunlight, until he was interrupted. 

“Hey!” Karin yelled, slapping Sasuke in the back so suddenly he was thrown back into the sea. “Me and Juugo are going to the vents. Go home and grab some lunch, you’re coming with us.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes, mostly to cover the surprise he’d felt, as if he’d been jolted out of a trance. He hoped they wouldn’t notice the new addition to his appearance. “I didn’t realize you call the shots around here.”

“Really? Because I do. Come on, we’re going,” she repeated. She didn’t notice; Karin wasn’t the most observant merfolk. He turned it backwards anyway, letting the jewel hang over his back in hiding. 

Sasuke had a feeling she wouldn’t leave him alone until he complied, but he still dragged his tail the whole way there just to annoy her. They swam through the busy streets, but deliberately, no one caught their eye. Juugo had complicated reasons for being disliked, and Karin was… Well, kind of a bitch. Sasuke didn’t particularly mind either of those things nor the obnoxious Suigetsu. So, they all had each other, but no one else.

The vents were located on hotspots that laid over the fire of the Earth. They were deeper than Atlantica, where the plants get less lively and the fish get uglier. They let out great clouds of water, blazing hot air into the sea, a heat that was only similar to that of the sun. Because of that, Sasuke liked the vents. Juugo and Karin liked the vents because you could steam fish by spearing them on poles and hoisting them into the hot air. Cold, raw fish can get boring, after all.

Sasuke suspected that this impromptu trip was because today was the dreaded anniversary. The great tragedy, the tear of his life that he'd never be able to stitch up, all that shit. They were trying to distract him. He’d indulge them for a few hours.

So now he was lounging, spear in hand, waiting for his fish to cook. Juugo was doing the same, watching the peeling scales carefully, but Karin had absolutely insisted on braiding Sasuke’s hair. “It’s so pretty,” she’d say, grabbing at it like a child would while Sasuke brushed it over his shoulder, out of reach. Today, for some reason, he didn’t mind. He felt a little preoccupied by those dreams, regardless of any attempts not to be. Maybe _that_ was the thing he should be distracted from. 

Karin kneeled on the flat rock they were sharing, fingers expertly twisting and pulling and shooing away a little rockling that they’d disturbed. Her movements and patterns were impressively complicated, and anything she did ended up admittedly beautiful. She made Sasuke’s mass of black ink hair into delicate brush strokes. She tugged too hard, but Sasuke never complained. That's why he was her favorite.

The light was dimmer down here, but it was still easy to see that Juugo had something on his mind. The slight frown, the crumpled space between his eyebrows, the nervous shifting of his tail kicked up the weeds he had curled up into. What he was so concerned about, Sasuke didn’t know, and wasn’t sure he cared yet. Juugo was always a little on edge. Karin, however, is nosey.

“Okay, Juugo. What’s wrong? You look like a… What are they called? Yeah, you look like a fucking redlip batfish when you pout like that, you know that?” 

He looked up and smiled weakly. “Oh, it’s nothing.” Juugo then glanced at Sasuke, and then back to his fish. So it was about him then.

“Nuh-uh, you can’t get away that easily,” Karin scolded. “Spill.” Juugo still looked reluctant, but finally stared down at his fins and opened his mouth.

“I saw you, Sasuke. The other day. In the cavern, with those eels.”

_Ohhh shit._

“The eels?” Karin asked, confused.

“Yes. Orochimaru’s eels.” Karin moved to look in Sasuke’s face, her eyes wide behind her glasses.

“Sasuke, you didn’t! We-”

“-are jumping to conclusions?” he cut in. “Aren’t thinking clearly? It’s one of those two options. Nothing happened. I barely spoke to them.” Juugo was quiet, hands clenching his spear, and then sighed. 

“People do crazy things, you know,” Juugo said quietly. “When they love someone. Just crazy.”

Karin and Sasuke both blinked at him, Karin’s thin fingers pausing amongst black hair. “Wait, what in the goddamn hell are you talking about?” she asked him, but Sasuke had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what it was. How did he think he was going to avoid this talk? And how to get out of it, too; he had no idea.

“I know it seems like an easy way out, Sasuke. Ancient magic, granting wishes, the promises of sea witches; all of them seem too good to be true, and that’s because they are. Nobody gets out of a contract unscathed, and some people end up… Well, you know. It might seem like a way to be with someone you love, and all that, but it’s okay. If things don’t work out like that, it’s okay.” Juugo usually didn’t talk so much in one sitting, and he hadn’t talked about sea witches since Kimimaro had left to find one almost two years ago. 

As he’d said, Juugo’s reasons for being disliked were complicated. It had nothing to do with his personality; he loved all sea creatures and seemed impossible to hate. But, instead, it was because he was cursed.

Suigetsu called it “magical anger issues”, which was a mean way to put it, but covered the basics succinctly. Who had done it to him, no one knew; Juugo had been this way as long as any of them could remember. He would get upset, get angry, and then suddenly he was more shark than merfolk, and there was hardly a sign of the Juugo he once.

This was enough to send most people as far away as possible. Juugo’s friends, for all their sarcasm, had bite marks to prove their loyalty. The only person who had ever really been able to calm him down (besides Sasuke) was Kimimaro.

The irony was: there was a curse on Kimimaro, too, similar to Juugo’s. A dangerous self-defense mechanism, bones shooting out at a would-be attacker, not unlike a blowfish. The issue was he hardly had any attackers. It was more likely to be innocent merfolk caught up in his spikes.

He, also like Juugo, had been an outcast, so they found solace in each other. That was why Kimimaro had secretly gone to Orochimaru one dark cold night, putting his soul on the line to release himself and Juugo from their curses. He couldn’t hold up his side of the deal, whatever it was, so now his body was seafoam, and his soul resting in the clawed hand of a witch; a cruel fate, one Sasuke wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Sasuke and the rest of their friends suspected that Juugo had been in love with Kimimaro, but never told him. None of them would ever know if those feelings were returned, and that was the way things worked out for Juugo. The “okay” way he’d mentioned before. The one that really wasn’t okay at all.

“I’m not Kimimaro,” Sasuke told him, and it came out so much colder than he’d meant it to because Juugo flinched. He stopped, started again. “I’m not. I’m not going to make the same mistakes, Juugo. Namely, I like it here,” he lied. “Being a mermaid is all I know. And I don’t know how many times I have to tell the both of you that I’m not in love before you get it.” Karin and Juugo’s expressions were unreadable. "Listen, no one at all means more to me than my soul.” Now that was another lie; through his mind, a flash of a face so like his own, and the rare laugh of his brother. He shook his head. “Drop the subject."

Juugo looked hurt by this. Not angry, in the dangerous way, but deeply sad. He tugged his spear back in, the orange scales of his tail reflecting the silver, and then simply swam away. Sasuke watched him go, feeling no need to call out to him to return. He’d spoken the truth he would uphold, and Juugo would either accept it or get over it.

“He’ll come around,” Karin agreed. Sasuke only shrugged, pulling away from Karin even as she protested she hadn’t finished. “At least let me tie it!” She tied the end, probably in a stupid little bow. “There we go. You look lovely. You look like-”

“Excuse us.”

Karin jumped so high her glasses floated away. Sasuke turned to look where she was looking; there were two merfolk, faces covered by masks. One was painted to look like the face of a Mako Shark, while the other looked like hammerhead. All four eyes looked deep and soulless; very fitting for ANBU.

Sasuke only waited to hear their piece. He wasn’t by any means fond of ANBU; they reported straight to Tsunade, nothing but tools, and, of course, his brother had been one. He eyed the black wave pattern tattoo on their air. Sasuke wouldn’t be caught dead with one of those.

“Sasuke Uchiha.” As if they weren’t quite sure who he was, even though Sasuke was sure they knew. “You must come with us and report to Queen Tsunade.”

Sasuke sighed at first. This wasn’t an unusual happening, after all. But then, the events of the night before. Konohamaru had seen everything, hadn’t he? And it would be a strike of luck for him to listen to Sasuke’s threat when he had the queen on his side. Calm and composed, he stayed that way, but his insides were twisting within him.

He himself getting in trouble for sneaking out or bringing a book home? That was no big deal. His father had gotten him used to disappointing his elders no matter what he tried, so it wasn’t like Tsunade was any worse. But. But bringing Naruto into this?

He felt sick. Handing his spear to Karin, he only nodded at the ANBU, motioning that he would follow their lead. Their tails were both green-grey, flicking in perfect unison.

It was strange to enter the city through the main gates instead of his side entrance, which probably spoke to how much he felt at home there. In the streets, too; people stared and whispered, but still, they wouldn’t meet his eyes. No, there was no home for him here.

And Tsunade was probably about to confirm that without a doubt. She was angry, angrier than Sasuke had ever seen her before. “Shut the doors,” she commanded the ANBU coldly. They complied, leaving him alone in Tsunade’s office. Sasuke stayed composed, still. There had been no accusations yet.

She seemed bigger than the last time they’d spoken, not physically, but as if she’d been pulling all the power of the ocean into herself, ready to unleash it on Sasuke. He was calm, yes, but he was in no place to underestimate her, so he just waited.

“Do you know-” Her eyes caught sight of his necklace, that had accidentally floated into view. Sasuke tucked it away again quickly; he didn’t trust her not to confiscate it. She let out a heavy breath, and started again. “Do you have any idea why I called you here today?”

“No idea,” Sasuke told her, face blank of expression, body free of movement. That only seemed to heighten her animosity.

“Don’t _lie_ to me,” she said through her teeth. “You little shit, don’t lie.”

This, Sasuke rose to. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Sasuke opened his mouth, into which she blew water with a snap of her fingers, making him choke. “Don’t answer that. You thought you could get away with something like that under my watch. You thought you could- You thought you could threaten your fellow merfolk into silence.”

 _Ah_. And so he was caught.

“Your own people, not just that, a young merfolk working hard for our city like you never have, you’d betray them for a _fucking two-legs_.”

“He’s not… It’s not like that. I didn’t do anything to betray us, I hardly even-”

“You saving him? That’s not betrayal? Your contact with him- Hell, you might be contaminated for all I know.” Tsunade jabbed a finger at him over her desk. “What could you have contracted from a man like that?”

“That’s a baseless accusation,” Sasuke insisted. “And you’re acting like I care so much about a two-legs. I barely even looked at him.”

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, and then laughed. It was a loud, cruel thing, echoing through the office, rising up to the tall ceiling to stare down at Sasuke like he was a child. “Barely looked at him! Your situation would be so funny if it wasn’t so sad.” She opened a drawer of her desk, pulling papers from them, and threw them to the table. “Care to explain these?”

Sasuke’s chest went cold, his heart ice. The photos, _the fucking photos._ Naruto smiling that wide smile, shining in the light like the most precious treasure. But why, why did Tsunade find these?

“Before you throw an absolute fit about tearing your apartment apart, perhaps you should have thought about that before you, I don’t know, broke our one most important law.” 

Sasuke opened his mouth, but no words came out, only a ferocious hiss. His fingers curled into the desk where his hands were planted in defiance, digging deep into the wood. That apartment, the only place he could shut out the expectations this city put upon him, and that, too, had been ruined. He could see into the drawer; the human trinkets that he’d kept in his home and his books, handled roughly. He could see the bent and torn pages, and it hurt. The books had their turn, and now Sasuke was bending and tearing.

He didn’t have an excuse for those photos. Not a single one came to mind to explain why he’d taken them and hidden them. To Tsunade, this was proof of his obsession, that much was clear.

The silence filled the room until they both couldn’t breathe under the pressure, and then Tsunade ripped each of the photos. One. By. One. They dropped from her hands, the feathers of a once-beautiful but now plucked bird. They fluttered as they sank. They featured a smile that only seemed to mock him now. 

“We could die, do you not understand that?” Tsunade said, and her voice was soft but the fury remained. “How can I possibly explain it in simpler terms to someone as far gone as you. Humans hate us. I don’t care what your brother or that prince told you, they hate us. They’d see us gutted, harpooned, or worse, caged for their sick entertainment. You risk us _all_ , even just when you sit up there on your rock, gazing out at dry land. So, Uchiha, is that worth it?"

Sasuke pulled his fingers from the table, one by one, splintering wood. He stared down at his clawed fingertips; bright red, but not bleeding. He was so much stronger than he was 7 years ago, sitting in right where he was standing now, crying and clutching air. Back then, he’d trusted Tsunade. He’d trusted Atlantica, too. He’d been naive. 

Finally, he sighed, folding his hands behind his back obediently. “You know what, Tsunade? I’d trade this whole damn city for a fuckin’ sand dollar.”

It probably would have taken him much less than that to get dragged out of the castle. The ANBU threw him out with such force he hit the seafloor, rock scraping against his face. Tsunade’s words rang about him: “Get the fuck out. Swim away, find someone who will house you, because I refuse to until you’re not a danger to our city.” She’d stalked away, but turned. “Maybe those two-legs you love so much will take you in, huh?"

What a truly funny set of last words for her to bring to the table. Atlantica wouldn’t house him? He was shocked. He had always felt so at home here.

ANBU seemed to want to follow him out, but Sasuke waved them away. “What interest do I have, living in this shitty little town. Just let me leave.” And they did. 

Sasuke felt… He didn’t know what he felt. He refused to feel it. Instead, he focused on the immediate future; he had one stop to make before he wandered into the deep unknown. It wasn’t to see any of his friends. He didn’t need to drag them into all of this. Sasuke would rather leave, never having to explain himself. He might regret his last conversation with Juugo being an argument, but he couldn’t bare to stay here much longer.

No, the place he needed to go, was home. The first home. The ruined one.

The Uchiha crest on the door was only barely visible, and as Sasuke pushed past it, the door itself almost fell off its hinges. He swam into what used to be the kitchen; it was bare and dull and grey. It looked worlds away from how it was when he was a child. What used to be teeming with life was now a blackened mark on Atlantica.

Sasuke hadn’t been there since the year before. There was a reason that his visits were so rare. Every time he came he was forced to relive the events of 7 years ago.

Itachi had been the one to gift (or curse, maybe) Sasuke with his love of humans. He’d taught Sasuke how to read and speak the language that the humans spoke, and how to write his own name. He’d told him amazing stories of all the things he’d seen at the surface, and soon took Sasuke there too, despite their parent’s wishes.

Itachi had always, _always_ loved humans, ever since Sasuke could remember. “It’s a secret, Sasuke,” Itachi would tell him, and it was. ANBU weren’t supposed to have anything to do with humans after all. Still, an interest wouldn’t hurt anyone. An obsession would, however.

He wanted legs, that was all he wanted. To escape the suffocating world of Atlantica. Itachi had seen a sea witch of his own, and made a contract. What was his payment? Two souls, of those dear to him. And Itachi signed.

Sasuke was only 12 at the time, still in school, and he’d left that morning not knowing what he’d be coming home to.

Sasuke put his fingers to his eyes and pressed until he saw colors. His parents, his _mother_ , dead. And Itachi, the most important person to him in the whole world, standing over them in the cloud of blood exploding from their chests. In his hand was a long knife, one Sasuke recognized from their trove of human treasures.

And why had Itachi done that, any of it? For his _legs_. Sasuke was still in shock as he watched his brother sent him one last, long look- 

No, still, he couldn’t bear to face his memories. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was drowning. Merfolk weren’t supposed to drown, though. Merfolk weren’t supposed to be anything like him. The ocean held nothing but pain for him; every wave crashing down on him were reasons not to stay.

Sasuke’s lungs burned. He bent over, hands crossed over his chest, forehead almost touching his tail. He couldn’t keep distracting himself anymore, even if it hurt. Itachi refused to be ignored in his absence as much as he had in real life. Memories of him were screaming for his attention, and Sasuke was too weak to deafen them. 

The truth, the one that Sasuke hated, was that he couldn’t completely erase Itachi from himself because so much of them overlapped. Itachi had been his everything growing up; he was everything Sasuke wanted to be, and so he spent so much of his time modeling himself after his brother. Itachi still lived with him, always, deep in his heart where Sasuke couldn’t cut him out.

Sasuke simply held himself together. It was all he could do when he started feeling like this.

It took… Sasuke didn’t know how long, until he could move freely again. His fingers brushed over the floor, a worn rotten thing, hardly recognizable, but if Sasuke was asked to trace where his parents had laid, he was sure he still could. 

His hands reached something sharp. He hesitated, looking up to see a pile of broken mirror shards. He looked up; they were from the big mirror in their old living room, the one his mother used to cut his hair in front of. It must have broken since he last visited. The thought of any other soul entering his home made him clench his fists in anger.

His eyes turned back down to the shards. What he saw made him flinch. Itachi, staring back at him in the mirror. With Sasuke’s hair braided back, he was a spitting, snarling image of Itachi. Sasuke reached out, tracing the shadows under his reflection’s eyes, and found his fingers trembling.

It had been a long time since he’d been so furious.

He snatched the large shard from the ground, cutting his palms and fingers. It felt good. He should have done this long ago. Sasuke was shaking, but his fingers grasped his hair and pulled it taut. The makeshift blade slid across the first few strands, and then he was sawing it away.

Fuck Itachi. Fuck those parts of him Itachi had made. And fuck this fear that kept him in Atlantica. He’d cut it all off, no matter how much it hurt or how deep he had to go. This was the last anniversary he’d spend sitting with the injustice he felt. 

He was going to make Itachi pay.

The legends were right, as it turned out. About Orochimaru being easy to find when one is most vulnerable to his sway. All Sasuke did was swim, as fast as he could, away. And then, slowly, his speed stalled. His surroundings were growing unfamiliar to him much quicker than he’d expected. 

He was on the edge of a garden of seaweed, and it was the strangest he had ever seen. It appeared to go nowhere; it had no connection to the floor, simply disappeared behind the lip of a huge hole in the sand. The leaves looked starved for the light of the sun, frail leaves desperately reaching for the sky. This had to be it. 

From between the seaweed, a green light glowed. It was only the slightest glimmer, yes, but there was no doubt it emanated from ancient magic. He inhaled; pure power. In he swam.

Somewhere along the way, as the light brightened, eels slithered from the depths to follow him. Sasuke ignored them, obviously; he had business with the sea witch, not his dogs.

When he got closer to Orochimaru, it was obvious, and made Sasuke sick. Tsunade had always said that the souls that sea witches took turned into sea foam, but he was getting the feeling that was more of a fairytale. All around the entrance to Orochimaru’s lair were tiny creatures, almost like weeds if not for beady black eyes.

All of them were swaying with the ocean waves, completely powerless to the sea. Their eyes had no focus, and yet they all seemed to be looking at him. They were barely audible, but made noise nonetheless; like hearing someone scream, but from so far away it’s fainter than the breeze.

The eels were pushing him forward, however, and his destiny was waiting. “Come in,” a voice called, making Sasuke look up. A shadow was cast, something just beyond that green light. The shadow was thin and sinister, arms outstretched. “Come in, my child. We mustn't lurk in doorways.” Sasuke stayed still, sizing up what could be around the corner, until the voice grew more irritated. “It’s _rude_.”

Sasuke took one last look at the shriveled weeds lining the entrance to Orochimaru’s lair, and then swam past them, trying not to think of Kimimaro and Juugo’s warning. It sounded cruel, but Itachi hadn’t become one of those weeds, and neither would he. “One might question your upbringing,” the voice grumbled as Sasuke turned the corner, and that was bait he wasn’t going to take.

Lounging among the gnarled roots of a tree trunk that sunk to the bottom was Orochimaru. He was, even without the magic, a sight to see. His tail was twice as long as Sasuke’s and like that of a snake, jet black with a violet underbelly. It curled up in on itself, the end flicking, ready to strike. His skin was a sickly green, the pallid complexion that made him look like he’d never seen the light of day.

A clawed fingernail covered in chipped paint beckoned Sasuke forward still. His hair fell so that only one slitted eye was visible, but just one was enough to convey the great power Orochimaru held. Sasuke stood his ground. He wasn’t so easily entranced by the mere presence of magic; he wanted to see what it could do.

Orochimaru cocked his head, sighing. “Your generation is so shy. Back in my day, people so happily waltzed into my grasp…” He groaned in annoyance as he untangled himself from the roots. “I think it’s the bad publicity.”

“You didn’t think that maybe putting the screaming husks of the souls you’ve collected at the door would tip people off?”

“I got sick of loved ones of the deceased coming after me, acting like their precious sibling or child or partner hadn’t signed their life away with their own hand.” Orochimaru slid over to a mirror, frowning and then dipping his fingers into a small pot, repainting distinct purple markings on his face. “They act like I’m such a monster. I signed my own contract, you know. With the ancient powers. Life is just paying dues.”

“I didn’t ask for a monologue. You know what I’m here for.” Sasuke’s stare was so icy it was surprising the water around them was still liquid, but Orochimaru seemed completely unaffected, just staring right back as he languidly finished his makeup.

Finally: “Of course I do. A wish of a poor unfortunate soul whose evil older brother took everything from him. What do you plan to do?”

Sasuke grit his teeth. “Kill him.”

“Oh, child, obviously. I’m asking how you plan to go about it. See,” Orochimaru said, swimming closer and reaching out a bony hand to point in his face, “in my eyes, the solution to your problem is simple. The only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself.”

Sasuke’s eyes widened. “That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“No, but it’s the only offer you’ll get from me. Your brother is long gone from the sea, young one, and I know better than to mess with that foul sea witch he went to. I won’t interfere with his contract, but… Well, it didn’t say anything about you, now, did it?”

Sasuke still didn't believe he heard it right. What was Orochimaru offering? To become...human? That couldn’t be right. “You can do that.”

“Give you legs? I could give you wings with the snap of my fingers, don’t act so impressed by that. Look, I won’t say it again. This is the _only way_ to get revenge on your brother.” Orochimaru swam to one of the many bubbling pots positioned over hot vents, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. He made a circular motion with his pointer finger, and the spoon followed, mixing up a thick purple liquid that somehow stayed in its place despite being underwater.

The only way? This wasn’t what he’d planned, but the more Sasuke thought about it, the more he agreed. There was no place for him under the sea anymore. He’d been cast out, unwanted, bound to a violent family name that cast others away.  Nobody cared about Itachi anymore, about the crime he committed. Above the sea, though, was freedom. Freedom to get his revenge, and freedom from the expectations of being an Uchiha. 

Sasuke couldn’t find a reason to say no, besides-

“There’s always a catch.”

Orochimaru rolled his eyes, continuing to stir until the pot bubbled over. “You mean payment. I’m not a charity. I need to make a living, and like I said, I have a contract of my own.” Sasuke opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Orochimaru cut him off. “I don’t deal in gold or treasures, child. I deal in souls.

“And in your case, I think I’ll take…” Orochimaru seemed to suddenly appear in front of him, grabbing his chin and tilting his head. “I think I’ll take your lovely voice. It’s standard for this kind of thing, really. Don’t look so shocked.”

Sasuke shook away Orochimaru’s hand. “Take it then. I don’t need that to kill Itachi.”

“You certainly don’t,” Orochimaru agreed. “All you need for that is a good knife and a burning thirst for fratricide.” The eels, still behind Sasuke, chuckled, and he ignored them still. “I’ll take your voice as collateral. As for the condition…” Orochimaru tapped his chin. “Ah! It’s a bit old-fashioned, forgive me, but!” Orochimaru’s voice stayed light-hearted, but the shadows on his face seemed to deepen greatly, his visible eye spinning. “If you fall in love, little one, I’ll take your soul forever.”

Sasuke wouldn’t give Orochimaru the flinch he so clearly wanted, but he couldn’t help a look of puzzlement. “If I fall in love? Are you stupid?”

Orochimaru laughed. “Not at all.”

What a strange condition to make. Sasuke had never been in love before, and the future didn’t have that in store for him either. This condition was all too easy, to the point where it made him suspicious, but from every angle he looked at it: easy.

“How would I even fall in love?” Sasuke asked before he could stop himself. “I won’t be able to speak.”

“Oh please, with those looks, your pretty face? This lovely jewelry” Orochimaru reached for him again, this time the necklace, making Sasuke jerk backwards, falling into the pile of eels. “And don’t underestimate the importance of body language.”

For some reason, Sasuke became aware of the necklace Naruto gave him in thanks resting on his chest. The weight felt heavier, but Sasuke shoved it to the back of his mind as hard as he shoved the eels away; both his enemy in the current moment. Orochimaru gave him a sinister smile, as if he were a mind reader as well as witch.”

“I don’t have all day. What is your answer?”

Legs and revenge in exchange for never falling in love? Sasuke never could ask for a better offer, and he couldn’t waste time hesitating any longer. he nodded soundly and stuck out a hand.

Orochimaru’s skin was freezing cold, and he squeezed Sasuke’s hand until it hurt. “ _Lovely_.” He set about collecting a pen and paper, writing down the conditions from what Sasuke could see over his shoulder. Finally, he turned around, presenting both to Sasuke. “Sign your name and then we may begin.

It was done, and the second it was, the paper began to burn in his hands, a hot green flame. Sasuke dropped it, but Orochimaru retrieved it with no problem. “Oops. I forgot to tell you that happens from time to time.”

Sasuke clenched his fists. “Just give me legs, old man.”

Orochimaru frowned at this name. “Old man? So rude.”

“Get on with it.”

“Fine.” Orochimaru rubbed his hands together until more green flames lit between them. When his hands came apart, there was a blazing fire in each of them. “First, your voice.” He wrapped his hands around Sasuke’s neck.

Pain shot from Sasuke’s throat down to his chest and lungs, as if he was drinking lava. He tried to cry out, but it was cut short; a glowing light was being pulled from somewhere deep inside him, clawing his insides in a desperate attempt to stay in its place. But Orochimaru pulled still, until finally the light was in his grasp.

“Wonderful!” he crowed, emptying the light into a glass jar sitting on one of his many shelves while Sasuke just tried to catch his breath. “And now, for the legs!”

Orochimaru threw his hands in the air as if conducting a glorious orchestra, and the end of Sasuke’s tail began to split in two. “Come! Winds of the sea Gods.” The pull grew stronger and Sasuke was ripping in two and he wanted to scream but nothing came out. Before his own eyes, his scales fell out to reveal skin, and his fins swelled into feet. 

Beneath the seething agony, he felt sick happiness at his pain. _My legs_ , he thought blankly, and then everything went black.

 

He had no idea how much time had passed when he awoke. The sun was only just peeking over the clouds into early morning, and there was sand on his skin, but beyond what Sasuke could observe, the only thing he knew was that he hurt.

What he had expected, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t that. His tail, being ruthlessly slit. He hated being merfolk, yes, but that was half his own body, and now it was gone forever.

His eyes widened at this thought and he lifted his head. A thought came to him. _Were they…?_

Sasuke had ended up on the shore, sitting in a pile of kelp, and from the pile outstretched… Legs. Real, human legs. He tried to move them experimentally, and the toes wiggled. _His_ toes. 

They dug into the wet sand deep and then lifted, the mud falling between his toes. Sasuke did this, again and again, just staring in wonder. He couldn’t believe it. Orochimaru had stayed true to his word. He could stand, walk, run, _fight_. There were too many thoughts rushing through his head; all he could do was smile.

And then nearly jump right out of those legs when he realized he was suddenly not alone. A voice startled him, and when he looked at the source, he was blinded by the sun. Squinted, he waited for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he wished they hadn’t.

Familiar. Lovely. Blonde and Blue. Naruto was staring down at him, confused and face red.

“Hey, um. Can I ask why you’re sitting naked in my backyard?”

…

 _Fuck._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this cliffhanger,,,,, thanks for reading!


	4. The First Impression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke’s toes dug deep into the sand again as heat filled him. Naruto, the object of his fascination, standing above him looking… Well, looking horrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I'm sorry this chapter is a little shorter, I wanted a clear cut between the ocean and the land. They'll be more information and plot the next chapter, I promise! Thank you whinyskeleton again for commissioning me, and thank you for reading!

The joy of Sasuke’s new-found legs wore off very, very quickly. He stared up against the light at Naruto, who was staring back with the most mortified look on his face that Sasuke had ever seen. His face was bright red, clashing with the orange bathrobe he wore, and his eyes were flitting from Sasuke’s to slightly behind him. 

He was suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he had no clothing on. This fact wouldn’t have mattered much under the waves; nudity wasn’t anything to bat an eye at, much less be embarrassed about, However, since Sasuke had only seen the naked human body in medical books, he’d assume it wasn’t customary to wander around without clothes on. Especially judging from Naruto’s face.

Sasuke was also realizing he was meeting Naruto face to face for the first time. No covering eyes, no photographs, just two people face to face. Two humans face to face. Sasuke’s toes dug deep into the sand again as heat filled him. Naruto, the object of his fascination, standing above him looking… Well, looking horrified. 

He looked down at himself; everything seemed to be in normal working order. In fact, he’d only just realized Orochimaru had promised legs, but not human legs necessarily. He could have ended up crab walking down this beach. But, it seemed as though the sea witch had treated him well in those terms; his legs were long and smooth. He’d fit in with the humans just fine, so he didn’t see a reason to be embarrassed.

However, he still needed to deal with the problem at hand. He looked back up and opened his mouth to explain. Opened… his mouth. The one that couldn’t speak anymore, the voiceless one. Damn it. There was no good way to explain what was happening here. Now, well,  _ that  _ was embarrassing. He grit his teeth behind his lips, fingers digging into the sand, and stayed as silent as he could. 

“I’m not even… I don’t know how you got back here. This whole area of the beach is fenced off,” Naruto said, turning to look. And so it was; down the beach, either way, there was fence blocking off this area from the rest. There were small wooden steps leading down the rock that the castle sat on that Naruto must have come down. “So it’d take some effort to get through it just to sit in a pile of seaweed…” Naruto trailed off again, just staring Sasuke down, and Sasuke stared back definitely. 

It wasn’t like he knew how he got here either. He hadn’t decided where he’d end up. It could have been here, or it could have been 10 miles down the coast. Naruto wasn’t special in this regard, though it was typical of him to think that he was.

“Are you going to answer me?” Sasuke shook his head and tapped his lips meaningfully. “You...won’t?” Naruto asked. Another shake. “Or you can’t. You can’t speak?” Sasuke agreed with him; this was his reality now, whether he was prepared for it or not. “Oh. Shit. That’s… not great.”

_ Not great? _ Naruto, future king of Konoha and current king of understatements. Not great was right. Sasuke was aching to just open his mouth and spin the tale of whatever life he was planning to lead as a human, but of course, nothing could ever be so easy for him. Orochimaru made sure of that. Legs, but no voice. A goal, but no plan.

“Look, okay, can you put this on first? Before we keep talking? I’m kind of- Whatever, just put it on.” Naruto shrugged his robe off his shoulders and handed it down to Sasuke. He was wearing only shorts underneath, and Naruto folded his arms over his bare chest, revealing slight discomfort. His tan skin was covered in tiny nicks and scars, probably from spending his life on the ocean. Sasuke eyed him skeptically a moment longer before turning his eyes to the clothing he’d been handed. 

The robe was soft in his hands, which was surprising based on its violent bright orange color. Sasuke put it on the same way Naruto had taken it off, and then wrapped it around himself. The scent was something he’d never smelled before, but it wasn’t bad. His arms folded to his chest, mirroring Naruto, fabric between them.  _ Now what? _

“Can you stand?” Sasuke glared up at Naruto with a passion.  _ Could he stand _ , what a stupid question. He’d been watching humans stand for his entire life, and it didn’t exactly look like such an impressive feat. He huffed and bent his knees to his chest, putting his hands behind himself for bracing and letting seaweed slide off his skin.

This felt like a good start. Sasuke pushed slightly, testing it, but it was apparently going to take much more strength than that to right himself. He glanced upwards; Naruto was watching him with one eyebrow raised, clearly skeptical. He’d better hurry this up. 

Sasuke pushed as hard as he could, and for one glorious second, he was in a crouching position, ready to spring to his feet. The next second, however, his face was planted into the sand. He rose up to hands and knees quickly, spitting sand from his mouth, and from the snorting noise above him, that had looked about as bad as it felt. Sasuke shook his head, water flicking, and started again.

Ignoring Naruto and his mockery, he rose to his knees. He stared hard at his knees poking out beneath the orange fabric, and willed them to listen. One foot slid steadily through the sand, forward, until it was planted in front of him in defiance. Good. He rested both his hands on his raised knee and pushed from there.

He was up! He was standing, just as tall and proud as he knew he was going to be able to. He sent Naruto a smug look; Naruto had doubted him, hadn’t he? Then, he attempted to take a confident step- Everything came crashing back down.

Sasuke’s face was digging into the ground again, legs bent what had to be the wrong way for the pain that sparked through them. He let out a silent hiss into the shore, no care for the sand in his teeth. All he wanted to do was lay there until Naruto left him alone. Sasuke had already been introduced to Naruto many times over, but Naruto had never met him before. This wasn’t the best first impression, and this wasn’t the kind of process that benefitted from an audience. Still, judging by Naruto’s choking laughter, he wasn’t going anywhere, so Sasuke would just have to improvise. 

In this case, improvising meant standing up and then unceremoniously plummeting from the heights at least two more times. Every time he tried to take that first step, his legs would suddenly forget they had a job to do, deciding instead to go weak and fly god knows where in a painfully comical fall. So Orochimaru could give him legs, but not ones that knew what they were doing? Some sea witch.

Naruto was tearing up now from trying not to openly laugh at Sasuke, which was almost worse. Two hands were covering his mouth, clenching hard, but the huffing noises of laughter came out anyway. Sasuke’s hands folded into fists, sand squeezing between his fingers. Why couldn’t Naruto just leave him the fuck alone?

Finally, Naruto wiped away his tears and held out his arms. “Here. I’ll carry you back to the palace.”

Sasuke gaped at him. Oh, the fuck he  _ wouldn’t _ . Being carried was exactly the opposite of what Sasuke had been craving; marching out of the sea on his own two feet, heading straight for… Well, wherever Itachi might be. But now, blinking sand out of his eyes, that didn’t seem like the most likely option. Still, he waved Naruto away.

“What do you mean ‘ _ no’? _ ” Naruto said, throwing his hands out. “You clearly don’t know how to walk! This is me doing you a favor, you know.” Sasuke just waved again, motioning to try and stand again, but Naruto pushed him back down with a hand on his shoulder.

“Look, I’m going to give you two options. The first one is you let me carry you into the castle and we figure out what’s going on, and the second one is you get arrested for trespassing and public indecency. Which one sounds better? 1? Or 2?”

How patronizing. Sasuke just kept shaking his head, until Naruto finally sighed. He knelt, pulled Sasuke into his arms and stood up like it was nothing. “Option 1 it is,” he said.

Sasuke punched his shoulder hard, struggling against Naruto, who only stuck out his tongue in a very un-prince-like manner. “If you keep moving like that I’m gonna drop you.” He wiggled a few seconds more before deciding, painstakingly, that it might be in the best interest of his mission that he sit this one out. Literally. 

So, instead, he went completely limp. If Naruto was going to carry him, at the very least Sasuke wasn’t going to make it easier on him. This only made Naruto laugh, a familiar sound, and hold him tighter. His body was warm against Sasuke’s, especially in the cool air of the morning. It reminded Sasuke of weighing him down on the beach, praying he was still alive. How dangerous life felt then, and how calm it felt for the moment; being carried. His face burned at the thought, so he put it out of his mind. 

“You’re kinda heavy,” Naruto mumbled after he’d been walking for a minute, which Sasuke ignored. It was funny, almost. Naruto had seemed so set on knowing who and what Sasuke was when he had saved him only a day ago, but now that the answer was sitting in Naruto’s lap, he had no idea. Life was proving itself typically and pointlessly confusing once again.

Naruto turned when he reached the end of the sand before taking a big step up the side of the grassy hill leading up to the palace. Sasuke turned his head to look back out at the sea he’d called his home for his entire life. He was leaving it behind now, step by step. Yes, he’d leave that part of himself sunken in the depths; Sasuke had no interest in it anymore. One Itachi was found and had met his fate, then Sasuke could cut it off forever…

When they finally reached the back door of the palace, Sasuke was shrinking back from the tall building. It was surrounded by pointed gates that would be hard to climb, he could see guards in the windows, and as the dangers of this place seemed to stack Sasuke was remembering Tsunade’s words.  _ Humans hate us, they’d see us gutted, harpooned- _

“Hey,” Naruto said, bumping Sasuke with his hip. “Don’t be scared, it’s okay.” Sasuke shot him a scornful glance.  _ Scared? Never. _ Wary, that was all. Naruto kicked open the back gate where someone had left it propped open, probably himself, and dragged Sasuke along until he descended a short staircase and opened a door that seemed to lead to the very lowest floor of the castle.

They stumbled together into a warm room; the windows were small and square, near the ceiling so they could still see the light, and the rug on the floor was filled with sand. The air smelled like the flowers growing outside and sea salt. This room was well-loved, Sasuke could tell, sheerly all the boating gear dumped in various corners. 

Naruto probably spent a lot of time here, and it seemed very fitting of him, to prefer to enter the castle through an innocuous back door than through the huge doors mostly likely located at the front of the castle. Obnoxious, proud, yet still humble. What a strange human. 

A man was there to greet them, bursting through a door so suddenly Sasuke raised his hands in defense. “Naruto, have many times have I told you not to-” He stopped short, looking at the two of them with wide eyes. He looked older than Naruto, though not by too many years, and his eyes were tired but kind. “Who’s... this?” he asked, stepped closer as Sasuke shrunk away, shoulders bunching towards his ears. 

“This is, um… I don’t know, actually? He doesn’t really talk, or know how to walk either, but he understands me just fine. I found him on the beachfront out back when I was walking this morning.”

“Of course you just found him and decided to bring him here!” the man said in a way that insinuated this wasn’t the first time Naruto had brought home a stray. “Humans aren’t interesting pieces of driftwood you can pick up and take home for your collection.”

“I’m not ‘collecting’ him, he needs our help! He didn’t even have, like, clothes, Iruka.”

“Well, I can see that. He’s wearing yours, after all.” Iruka peered to look at Sasuke. “And he just...appeared? How did he even get back there?”

“I have no idea,” Naruto said, and then walked past Iruka to a couch on the other side of the room, setting Sasuke down. “But I want to help him. I don’t think he has anywhere else to go. Do you?” He was addressing Sasuke now, kneeling next to him, eyes wide. 

Sasuke thought for a moment, but he guessed that was true. It wasn’t like he knew anyone in the human world who would give him a place to stay; in fact, he was more likely to get thrown out. He couldn’t walk, had no belongings to his name, and no way to explain why exactly that was. This wasn’t any time to look down on kindness. He shook his head at Naruto.

“Are you sure he’s not drunk?” Iruka asked, to which Naruto pushed him lightly, telling him no, he’d know well enough if Sasuke was. “But he had to have come from somewhere,” Iruka insisted. He stood over Naruto. “Do you remember where you lived before now?”

This was another interesting question, and one that Sasuke was realizing he’d have to answer no to. It wasn’t like he could tell anyone that he’s merfolk, nor that his hometown was Atlantica. Even if he could, there was no way to return. He shook his head again, a necessary lie.

“Do you think he has amnesia?” Naruto asked Iruka, and Sasuke had no idea what that meant. It must be something invisible, because it was clear he had nothing on him. Maybe a disease? No matter. The humans could believe whatever they wanted as long as Sasuke didn’t end up in the streets.

“I think he might,” Iruka agreed, “and that might also be part of why he can’t speak… We can’t be sure.” Well, Sasuke couldn’t blame them for “sea witch curse” not being at the top of their list for possible reasons. For a moment, he considered attempting to enlighten them, but he was getting the feeling the curse was going to stop him from revealing any specifics about his past or how he’d become human. 

“Do you have a name?” Iruka asked him, slowly, which made Sasuke curl his lip. This was getting insulting.  _ A name? _ Of course, he did. A dangerous, proud name, one no merfolk didn’t know. He made a motion of writing with his hand, which seemed to be clear enough, as Iruka went to pull a pad of paper and a pen out of his bag resting against the wall in an instant. He brought it to Sasuke.

The pen was an unfamiliar shape in Sasuke’s hand; merfolk and humans held their writing utensils differently, and he was trying to remember which was which. Finally, it was resting between his first two fingers and thumb. He pushed the pen into the paper, watching the ink bleed out.

“Sasuke Uchiha? That’s your name?” Sasuke only sighed; he’d written it, hadn’t he? Naruto smiled at him. “I like that name a lot.” Sasuke tired not to roll his eyes at that comment with all his might; Naruto was just being stupid again. “Iruka? Come on, can he stay? It just feels like he’s supposed to be here, you know? I-”

“Why are you begging  _ me _ ?” laughed Iruka. “I’m not the prince, you are. And Sasuke isn’t a stray puppy, Naruto. Why don’t you ask  _ him _ ?”

“Oh, right…” Naruto turned back to Sasuke. “Do you want to stay here? While we figure out where your home is?”

Sasuke was nodding and Naruto was smiling widely in return before he could think about it twice. This wasn’t exactly the start that he’d been expecting, but it couldn’t be too bad of one either. Here, in the palace, he’d have food and shelter, not to mention be able to continue his favorite case study. He looked up at Naruto, the prince, who was looking back at him like he was already partially wrapped around Sasuke’s finger. His words repeated:  _ It just feels like he’s supposed to be here, you know? _

This could be the start of a great friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What an entrance... Thank you for reading!


	5. Unmistakably Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humans were strange, frivolous creatures, he thought. But, endlessly interesting all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Sasuke's first day as a human. I just..........love this boy....... and I hope you like the chapter!

So, as quickly as Sasuke had lost one house, he had gotten another one. This one was... different, to say the least. Human, and huge.

The man, Iruka, clearly had a job to do, as he kept looking at his watch. He told Naruto that he had some things to attend to, and he’d help figure everything out when he got back. When Naruto whined? “Not everything revolves around you, Naruto. It’s not like I don’t have other pupils.” But, from the way he smiled, Naruto was still his favorite.

“And remember,” he called behind as he left, “in a couple months, you’ll call the shots around here. Why don’t you practice that now?” Naruto looked completely horrified at this prospect, looking at Sasuke nervously. This was a weighty responsibility, as this specific situation was shaping up to be very strange, and probably wasn’t one that he’d dealt with before. He held out for about five seconds before telling Sasuke they were going to find someone else to help.

This seemed unfitting of him, of the younger Naruto Sasuke had known. Naruto used to be completely headstrong, loving to make decisions on his own. Often demanding it, even. Sasuke could remember him tearing fishing poles and rudders from his elders’ hands, insisted that he’d didn’t have to be taught and he’d do it all by himself. But now that ultimate power was in his reach, he didn’t want it. Instead, he feared it.

Naruto led him through several rooms of the palace, this time pushing him in a chair with wheels on it that he’d pulled out of a closet and let Sasuke transfer into. He was explaining every room as they went, but Sasuke wasn’t listening whatsoever.

Like he’d said, it was human and huge. All the ceilings were much higher than they needed to be, towering over him and covered in stained glass skylights, raining brilliant colors down on them. Below that, crystal lights, practically jewelry from all the stones that dripped from them. On the walls, huge paintings of the sea and portraits of what he assumed was other royals framed in gold. underneath them, a sparkling marble floor and red rugs that were thick enough that it was hard to roll across them. It was fantastic, this palace.

And yet, Naruto seemed to be apologizing for its magnificence. This, too, was confusing; who would ever apologize for a place like this? It was something he’d only seen in books, about kings and riches and betrayal, but now it was real. He ignored Naruto’s discomfort for his own wonder.

“This,” Naruto said at one tall door, “is my room. I’d show you it but it’s kind of embarrassingly messy in there. And, um, I’m also realizing I’d have no reason to show you my room, but I guess I just…” Naruto paused, fingers trailing along the intricate gold patterns painted on the door. “I don’t like people thinking I love living with all this fancy stuff. I like the basement better. I wish they’d just move me down there. Sorry, I talk a lot. Too much, most people say.”

Sasuke waved his hand, excusing Naruto’s dump of information. He’d overheard Naruto oversharing much worse and more embarrassing things in his time of observation. Sometimes Naruto said things at the worst possible time for him to say them, which was not the best quality for a king to have, but one that’s hard to imagine disappearing. 

“I’m always doing that, so get used to it.” Sasuke knew this, of course.

Finally, they came to another door, this one with less gold detailing than Naruto’s but still splendid. Pink flowers were hand painted on the front of it with curling green vines. Naruto knocked on the door, and the voice that came out did not match the flowers. “What could you possibly want on my day off, Naruto?” He cringed, but just knocked again. There was a groan and shuffling inside.

“Naruto, seriously-” She stopped. It was a girl, about Naruto’s age, who looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. The room behind her looked just as beautiful as everywhere else, but this time colored rose and red. 

She was clutching a bathrobe around her, the same as Sasuke’s, but hers was a petal pink to match her hair. Sasuke had never seen someone with green eyes quite as bright as hers, even as she was using them to glare fiercely.

“Hey, Sakura.”

_ Sakura? _ Sasuke remembered that from somewhere… Naruto had mentioned her offhand when Sasuke had saved him. They must be friends.

“So, okay, long story short, I found this guy sitting naked in the backyard, so I carried him inside. He doesn’t know how to walk and he can’t speak whatsoever. His name is Sasuke.” 

Sakura looked at Sasuke, squinting. “What the fuck? Really? Where do you get these people you save from, Naruto, because their circumstances get stranger every time.”

“Look, can you just help me? He needs clothes and a room and I keep putting my foot in my mouth so please help.” Naruto said this plea in one breath, and Sasuke was sure if he looked up at him, he’d have big pleading eyes to match.

Sakura sighed, leaning against the doorframe and tapping her head against it. “...Fine. Let me get dressed and then yes, your highness, I will attend to you in your time of need.”

“I hate it when you do that!” Naruto called, but the door was already closing. “I  _ hate _ it when she calls me that and she knows it.”

“Sorry, Prince Naruto!” she yelled through the door.

“Shut up!”

After a few minutes she appeared again, wearing a similarly red and pink outfit (Sasuke was starting to see the pattern here). Now that she was awake, her eyes shone even brighter, and Sasuke could understand just through that why her and Naruto were friends. They had energies that matched.

“Okay, come on, I’ll take him to the laundry room and then I think a room on the ground floor is open? I’ll figure it out.”

Naruto patted her head. “That’s my favorite thing about you, you know. You just deal with things.”

“Excuse me, I meant I’ll figure it out,” she said quieter, “if you admit that the reason you’re not doing this is because you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your type.”

“He’s not-! He’s not  _ my type _ ,” Naruto hissed.

“Please, as I live and breathe, he’s totally  _ your type _ ,” Sakura hissed back. 

Sasuke had to assume they were talking about him, but he had no idea what they meant. “Your type” must be slang he didn’t understand, and it wasn’t like he could just ask what it meant. He sunk a little lower in his chair, annoyed. 

He hated people talking about him like he wasn’t there. Being left out of conversations, he didn’t mind, but if the topic turned to him, he should be a part of it. His friends knew his dislike for this, which is why they were always providing unwanted commentary on his everyday life.

Finally, Naruto was leaving, waving goodbye. Sasuke was distracted again, though, this time by one of the giant time faces. It looked like the one they had in the cavern, but this one was working. One of the metal pieces was swinging back and forth, and everytime it met its highest point on either side, it ticked. Sasuke never would have guessed that it ticked. He wished he could tell Juugo.

“He’s always doing this,” Sakura grumbled. “He loves getting people out of rough spots. That’s not a bad thing, not at all,” she added, “but he  _ loves _ it. I was one of his first ones, a poor little orphan in need of a home. 

“And then Kiba, who needed to escape a bad situation, and Lee, in a similar position to me. Others, too. We all needed help, and he gave it to us, not to mention a job. Hell, I’m one of his personal advisors. It drives the elders of Konoha absolutely insane, but he does it anyway.”

That sounded in line with everything he knew Naruto to be, but what he was hearing was: Sasuke was another “project” to Naruto, maybe. Not a very pleasing thought.

Soon enough, Sakura had collected his clothes and rolled him into what was going to be his room. “Here we are,” she announced, tone bored, but Sasuke was feeling the opposite

A real bed, like he’d seen in books, heaped with varying colors of blue blankets and pillows. Waves were painted on the walls, looking incredibly lifelike. He bent at the waist to touch the rug; the softest thing he’d ever felt. And he’d been sleeping here? Sasuke could hardly believe it, though he tried to act like it wasn’t  _ that _ impressive, just for Sakura’s sake. 

“Here are your clothes,” she told him, pulling them from under her arm, “since I’m realizing it’s a little weird that you’ve been almost naked this whole time.” Sakura handed the pile to him, and they smelled like clean ocean air.

“Do you need help getting them on, or-” Sasuke shot her an intense glare, and she raised her hands in defense. “Okay, okay, I was just asking! I’ll wait outside for you, then.” Wait outside indeed.

When Sasuke sat down on the bed ( _ his _ bed), he sunk down into it. It was so much more comfortable than the rock and seaweed beds that Sasuke was accustomed to. He laid back, stretching out his arms, and smiled. He couldn’t help it. 

“You better not take forever in there,” Sakura called, and Sasuke huffed at the door. She was interrupting his basking. He sat up, and wobbled forward for a dangerous moment before righting himself. Now, to get into these clothes.

The pile sat next to him on the bed. Clothes. So important to humans, so unimportant to merfolk. Still, Sasuke would play along. Sticking out was the last thing he was trying to do, especially while he was looking for his brother. He shrugged the robe off his shoulders and then picked up the first garment; pants, if he remembered correctly. What a strange object.

It took some uncomfortable tugging and pushing, especially around his feet, but eventually, Sasuke was in them. They seemed to fit him perfectly, and the material was soft underneath his fingers.

Next was his shirt, then his jacket, his socks and shoes (again, a bit of a challenge to get on). They were all varying shades of blue, making him blend in with his wavy walls. All that was left was… something. He wasn’t sure what it was; he’d never seen pictures of something quite like it. They looked like shorts, and made of thin fabric.

Maybe they went on top of his pants, like a jacket did? He couldn’t think of what else they were required for in the human world, but slipping them on over seemed like his best bet. He transferred back into his wheelchair and made for the door.

When he swung open the door, Sakura stared. Just stared at him. Like he’d walked out wearing nothing at all.

“What the fuck,” she finally said.

Sasuke tilted his head.

“Why in god’s good name is your underwear on the outside of your pants?” Sasuke looked down.  _ Isn’t that how they were supposed to be..? _ “They’re called underwear, because they, like… go under your clothes, dumbass.”

Sasuke rolled back into his room quickly, door slamming loudly behind him, trying not to be embarrassed. So, apparently, humans had something called “ _ underwear _ ” that he’d been unaware of. 

He didn’t know how he was supposed to know about that. It wasn’t like he’d been lucky enough to have some magically convenient book on every type of clothing fall down from the human world. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell Sakura that, so he’d have to settle for looking like, as Sakura put it, a  _ dumbass _ . 

“You’re so weird,” Sakura said thoughtfully through the door, which he ignored. “Where are you from again?”

Naruto showed up again later, bright smile and all, and all Sasuke could do is thank every sea god he could think of that Naruto hadn’t been there to see his mistake. While the novelty of seeing Naruto in real life was starting to wear off slightly, Sasuke still felt a need to impress him, or at the very least, not humiliate himself in front of him.

“I can take it from here, Sakura,” he told her, and Sakura sent Sasuke one last, long, strange look over her shoulder before heading on her way. She hadn’t said anything about the underwear, so at least he had that to thank her for.

Iruka, Sakura and now… “Kakashi,” Naruto called through a slightly open doorway. The people just kept coming, and frankly, it was exhausted. Why did Naruto have to be so sociable? Sasuke had never had the problem of knowing too many people.

He brought Sasuke into a huge room. One entire wall was taken up by floor to ceiling mirrors, while absolutely everything else was red. There were racks around the room, holding all kinds of weapons, both real and fake. A man was standing on a padded part of the floor, breathing heavy, as if he had only stilled when hearing the door swing open.

“This is Kakashi. Kakashi, Sasuke.” Sasuke just stared up at Kakashi while Naruto gave the same old speech (washed up on the shore, can’t speak, so on). He could already tell that Kakashi wasn’t really buying it, just by watching the rise of his eyebrows. Sasuke couldn’t blame him, as it did seem a little far-fetched, but when he looked up at Naruto and Naruto beamed back, he couldn’t imagine not trusting that smile.

“Why did you bring him here?” Kakashi asked, walking over a rack of lethal-looking swords and placing his gently along with them. “Just want to introduce your new friend?”

“No, no,” Naruto corrected, “I want you to help him learn to walk.” Kakashi shook his head at first but Naruto waved his concern away. “Come on, Kakashi, just for a little while. If you can teach me how to fight, you can certainly teach him how to walk.”

“...That’s true.”

“Perfect! Then I’ll leave it to you.” Before he left, Naruto leaned down to whisper to Sasuke: “He’ll warm up to you real quick, I promise.” Sure he would.

Kakashi was at an age that Sasuke couldn’t seem to place. Not old any means, but something in his eyes told Sasuke he wasn’t young of heart. His grey hair was sticking up everywhere, and half his face was hidden behind a black mask. He looked tired, mostly, and kept glancing at his sword, like he wished he was still holding it.

Kakashi beckoned him across the spacious room where he was pulling out from the sidelines of the room what seemed to be two parallel bars, held up and connected to short steps that slowly ascended upwards and then descended on the other side. Sasuke wheeled himself over; it was getting easier with every push, he thought. He’d always been known to pick things up quickly, and he had a feeling that it was going to be the same with walking.

When bars sat in front of him, however, it seemed an intimidating challenge. Kakashi stood next to him, hands holding one of Sasuke’s upper arms in support. “What I’m going to have you do is grab these bars and pull yourself up if you can.” Sasuke paused a moment, taking a breath. He was getting the feeling that Kakashi wasn’t someone he wanted to embarrass himself in front of either.

In one movement, he lifted his arms, grasped the bars and yanked himself up. He wobbled for a moment, trying to keep his balance and almost failing. Kakashi held him steady, and he righted himself. He was standing. Sasuke looked down at his legs with glee; they were finally cooperating. 

Kakashi, however, wasn’t nearly as impressed. “Next, you’re going to pick up one of your feet, and take a step forward.” Sasuke did as he was instructed, and there it was. His first real step. A kind of joy he hadn’t felt in years filled him. He was becoming more human every moment. 

Sasuke’s thoughts were interrupted by Kakashi. “I don’t trust you, you know. You show up, out of the blue, completely helpless. It’s no secret that our prince is blindly generous. It wouldn’t be very hard at all to weasel your way into this castle, and not very hard to fake not being able to speak or walk.”

Sasuke thought, and then only nodded. He’d been expecting this. He didn’t have a clear impression of Kakashi yet, but behind his bored demeanor, Sasuke was sure something dangerous lurking behind it. Dangerous to him, he didn’t know yet, but dangerous all the same.

His feet were itching to try another step, however, and he wished Kakashi would stop trying to talk to him. He didn’t really care if Kakashi trusted him or not, as long as he got to stay here and use those resources to pursue his brother. He lifted his foot, this time without direction, moved it forward, and put it back down.

“If I find out that you’re lying and here for no other reason than taking advantage of Naruto, I’ll see to it personally that you’re booted so far out of here, you’ll land in Suna. Got it?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and nodded again.

Kakashi didn’t say much of anything else for the rest of their session, just gave Sasuke directions when he needed them, and that was fine with Sasuke. Eventually, Naruto came to save him, and while Kakashi continued with that suspicious gaze, he set Sasuke free.

“I hope he wasn’t too hard on you,” Naruto said once they were out of earshot. “He can be a little… Well, he’s Kakashi, after all.” As if Sasuke had any idea what that meant. Apparently Kakashi was someone known by first name alone, but for what, Sasuke didn’t know.

“There’s somewhere I want to show you next. It’s one of my favorite places here.”

Of course, it was a kitchen. It was Naruto, after all. It was hot inside, and everything shone in warm colors from the fire lit for cooking. There were heaping plates and baskets of vegetables and fruits, as well as a large cut of meat that an equally large boy was standing in front of with a carving knife. His hands moved with ease, cutting away strips of meat and then bringing them to the fires to cook. The sizzled loudly as they hit the pan, oil popping.

“This is Choji,” Naruto said, introducing the boy standing at the stove, who waved brightly in Sasuke’s direction. There were so many new people to meet, it was exhausting, but Choji seemed kind enough.

“You can help yourself to anything in this kitchen,” Naruto said, giving the example of picking an apple out of a bowl and tossing it Sasuke’s way. He caught it easily, and he could almost see his reflection in it’s shiny red skin. Apples were a very rare treat under the sea, and they tended to float, so only those brave enough to go to the surface got to taste them. 

There were heaps and heaps of food on the tables, but Sasuke could only smell one thing in the room; fish. He couldn’t help it as his stomach grumbled. He knew there were so many more things he could try, but part of him wanted something from home among this completely new world. 

He reached out and grabbed a fish off the plate next to the stove. Without thinking twice, he stuck the head of the fish in his mouth and tore it from the body. It was much tougher to eat now that he didn’t have the strong jaw and pointed teeth of a merperson, but he suffered his way through for the wonderful taste. This fish was certainly the finest money could buy; it’d probably been caught that day.

The bones particularly were hard to swallow as a human. He gave up eventually, collecting all the meat off them and then spitting the rest into the palm of his hand.

He was about to take another bite when his eyes caught Naruto’s and he stopped. Naruto was giving him the exact same look that Sakura had been giving him earlier when he’d worn underwear on the outside. Sasuke tilted his head, asking  _ what? _ Naruto opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened again. He himself looked like a fish now, too.

“Usually, um… Usually we don’t just grab raw uncleaned fish off the counter and bite the heads off.” Naruto grinned weakly, but looked a little queasy. “If that’s what you like to do, then cool! That’s totally fine! I love that.” Choji gave Naruto a dark look but didn’t say anything besides that.

Humans were strange, frivolous creatures, he thought. 

He pointed at the frying pan next to the fish.

“Yeah, we usually… cook them...” Naruto said. He seemed confused that he’d have to explain that. Sasuke shook the bitten fish in front of Naruto, scales glimmering deep blue. He tilted his head in question again.

“Why… Why don’t we just eat them raw?”

Sasuke nodded.

“Samonella?”

Whatever the fuck  _ that _ meant.

Sasuke was sure that they had to be running out of rooms to see, but that never seemed to be the case. The castle was expansive. It probably wasn’t as big as the one in Atlantica, but he’d never been carted around to see all of it. He couldn’t even figure out where they were in the castle, as he couldn't remember all the lefts and rights, not to mention all the flights of stairs that Naruto had carried him up and down with as much care as the first time.

He held up a hand to stop Naruto and then pointed at the ground. “Right now we’re on the third floor in the west wing.” Sasuke peered out a window; yet another garden, just a short distance below. He leaned back in his chair and made a stacking motion, one hand after another. “Including the basement and all the towers, there’s 12 floors.”  _ 12\.  _ It must take the better part of a day to travel from one corner to the other.

They continued on their way. Sasuke’s eyes traveled to a door they were passing and then slapped Naruto’s arm to stop him dead. “Ow, what is it?” Sasuke pointed towards the door, and Naruto followed his arm. “The library? We can-” Sasuke’s hands were on his wheels, pushing himself away towards the door. “Hey, wait up!”

It was one of the most beautiful sights ever to meet Sasuke eyes. It was a giant space, bigger than the training hall they’d gone to, and full of things Sasuke had always longed to see. Clocks and desks and chairs with high backs. Long, sweeping staircases led to a second floor that was just as jam-packed with books as the first. It was as if someone had attempted to house the entirety of human knowledge.

Naruto caught up to him. “Do you want to go in?” Sasuke hadn’t even waited for permission, pushing past Naruto and into the room. A chandelier 5 times the size of him hung above him, glittering crystal light dancing across the walls. It reminded him of the light that filtered down from the opening in his cavern of treasures back home. “You look like you belong here,” Naruto remarked, and Sasuke guessed that was true “I think I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Naruto said, and promised to be back soon. Sasuke nodded absentmindedly, staring up at the library that would put his own to shame.

He rolled over to a shelf and ran his fingers across the bindings. It left a trail of dust that left him feeling disgruntled. All these books and no one was reading them. At least, Naruto certainly wasn’t. Sasuke pulled a book from its place and flipped it open. Words filled his vision, most familiar, but some completely new.

_ Anticipation. Impetuous. Liaison. _ He wished he had his dictionary on hand, so he could look these up. He closed the book again, red with gold-edged pages, and put it in his lap. He went around to the different shelves, turning his head to read the names on the sides.

There were so many ologys.  _ Biology, zoology, psychology. _ The names ticked on one by one, all the way to the end of the shelf and the one below it. Sasuke would have to explore that later.

Finally, after searching for a few minutes, Sasuke found a dictionary. It was a bit too high for him to reach. He looked over his shoulder; no one was watching. He pushed out of his chair. He was still a little unsteady, but after a moment, he was fine. Sasuke smiled.  He  _ knew _ he’d pick this up.

Straightening up, the dictionary was now right before his eyes. He pulled the book out quickly, and was happy to find it was the same edition he’d had back at home. There was a moment of longing, for all the treasures he’d held so close that had to be left behind, but this library could give him so much more. Everything in the human world, it could give him so much more.

He ended up slowly making his way across the room to one of the many desks. He settled in front of it, dictionary on one side and the red book on the other. Sasuke picked through it slowly, running his finger under every line. He didn’t want to miss a piece of the plot or any new words:  _ resplendent, fib, dynamic. _

It seemed at first to be the story of a scorned king’s daughter, with dark black eyes and a biting tongue, traveling the country and ruining anyone on her way to take back the throne. The action had him caught up in it, and it often it felt like his heartbeat matched hers. Whoever wrote this, well, they certainly knew what they were doing.

He was beginning to suspect, however, by chapter three, that this was a romance as well. A boy, a bumbling idiot of a boy, thought he had what it took to take her on in a fight. She almost immediately beat the absolute shit out of him, obviously, but afterwards, the boy only smiled at her, bloody nose and all. He congratulated her. And now, the main character kept thinking about him.

This is where Sasuke ran into his problem with the book. He was already hooked; he had to finish it. Romance, however; not really his preferred genre. He sighed. Why does every good plot have to get sullied by someone falling in love?

“Hey.” Sasuke jumped, slamming the book shut out of instinct. Usually he’d be trying not to get caught. But, it was just Naruto. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, but dinner is ready.”

Dinner. Right. Sasuke stared down at his book with longing; he didn’t want to leave it behind.

“You can take that with you, if you want,” Naruto told him. “And the dictionary, too. It’s not like I’m using it.” Sasuke had suspected as much. He collected them in one of his arms, while the other pushed himself up from his chair. This time, it was a breeze. He stood proud, and as it turns out, he’s slightly taller than Naruto, who looked up at him in awe. 

“Whoa, walking already? Kakashi must have really helped you.” Sasuke rolled his eyes. It was more his own doing than that Kakashi’s. 

He still had to lean on Naruto a little with a steady arm around his shoulder, but after a few minutes of practice, he was walking completely on his own, even down stairs. 

Dinner went well, in Sasuke’s opinion. he hadn’t been sure what to expect, but the great dining hall had been ignored for a wooden round table in the kitchen. Sasuke was sat beside Naruto, and there were some familiar faces. Iruka and Sakura smiled at him, Kakashi nodded, and Choji filled up his plate without him having to ask. 

There were others, too, that he didn’t know. Two rambunctious, horribly loud boys named Kiba and Lee were telling some story that Sasuke didn’t care to listen to. A blonde-haired, icy-eyed girl named Ino sat beside Sakura, leaning into her and laughing. Shikamaru, looking more bored than Sasuke ever thought possible, asked if he could leave and go to bed early.

There were Naruto’s people, Sasuke was realizing. His family. There’d been no mention of a queen or king, only a prince. Who was ruling the kingdom right now, Sasuke had no idea, though he was guessing it was a mix of people handling different things until Naruto could handle it all.

For a moment, the pressure felt too great. Sitting at a table full of Naruto’s family, only one day into staying in this palace. Kakashi had been right, about Naruto’s blind generosity. There’s a good possibility that Naruto would do this for anyone. Sasuke, then, wasn’t particularly special. That thought left him slightly cold, and remained that way until after dinner.

Naruto walked Sasuke back to his room, to “make sure he didn’t get lost”, which even Sasuke knew was a stupid excuse to say something to him in private. His room was one floor up and one door down from the kitchen, after all, but apparently, he still needed help. They stopped in front of his door, and still Naruto lingered.

“Look…” he said finally, and Sasuke found himself dreading what Naruto had to say. Had he changed his mind? 

“I know this sounds dumb, but I really feel like you’re meant to be here, somehow. I’m a big believer in fate, and I think that fate is telling me… something. It’s whispering your name.” Naruto laughed awkwardly. “I guess I’m saying that you don’t have to stay with me. It was all so sudden, I know that, but I think we could be friends, Sasuke. If you stayed.”

Those words stayed in Sasuke’s head as he snuck out of the castle that night. It was only a short trip, down to the water for a moment to clear his head. What Naruto had said surprised him, in a way that only Naruto seemed to be able to do. It had been too much in the moment; Sasuke could only nod and slip inside his room to breathe. Friends, Naruto had said. Sasuke wanted to be friends. He didn’t want anything getting between him and Itachi, but just friends. Maybe that would be okay.

Speaking of friends. Sasuke made his way down to the shore, to a small area shaded from the moonlight by swaying trees. The lagoon had a faint buzz to it, as if summer had yet to fully lay down in rest. Fireflies twinkled in the air, and leaves traveled lazily over the surface of the nearly green water. 

It was so still; nothing like the ocean. Nonetheless, it was water, and therefor familiar. Sasuke took off his shoes and peeled off his socks, sticking his feet in. It had been an eventful day, and it seemed his body was feeling it’s weight all at once. 

It wasn’t long before the peacefulness was interrupted by a splash of water straight to his face. Sasuke spluttered, spitting out sea water, and blinked it away to see: Karin, sharp teeth bared at him in a cruel grin.

“Found ya, Sasuke,” she said, reaching up to slap his face lightly. “We’ve been looking for you all day.” Her eyes widened as they fell to his legs. “I knew it! Suigetsu, Juugo, I called it!” Sasuke’s other friends suddenly surfaced as well, gaping at his legs.

“Whoa!” Suigetsu crowed, immediately reaching over to pinch at them. “They feel so real and everything! Not that I’ve ever felt human legs before.” Sasuke shifted away from his touch, but he persisted.

“Leave him alone,” Juugo chided, to no avail. Suigetsu continued his prodding as Karin straightened her glasses.

“So come on, Sasuke. Spill. What happened.”

And so, again, Sasuke was forced to try to explain everything through miming. This was exhausting. He sighed, and then reached down to the wet sand. Sasuke wasn’t sure how much Orochimaru’s magic would keep him from communicating about his contract, but he could try.

_No voice_ , was all he was able to write in the sand. His friends stared at it, blinking, and then Suigetsu started laughing. “Orochimaru said ‘shut the fuck up, Sasuke!’”

“So, you can’t speak,” Karin said, not a question so much as it was a stated fact. Sasuke nodded at this, kicking water into her face, making her screech. “Asshole!” She adjusted her lensless glasses. “You know what this means, right? You not speaking?”

“It means,” Suigetsu cut in, “that we can say anything we want to you, and you can’t say anything to defend yourself.” Sasuke opened his mouth to try and do just that, but Suigetsu only laughed. 

“I’ll start!” said Karin. “Your hair looks dumb as fuck. Why does it stick up in the back like that now? It used to be so pretty and luscious, now you look like a horrible sea urchin.”

“Your attitude about this whole thing, too. Juugo said ‘whatever you do, don’t go to a sea witch’ and literally an hour later you waltz into see Orochimaru like an absolute clown.” Juugo looked embarrassed, like he wouldn’t join in but secretly agreed.

Sasuke just stayed still and silent, legs crossed, looking up at the stars as if nothing was being said at all. Karin and Sigetsu seemed to air every grievance of theirs, leaving nothing to the imagination when it came to the things about Sasuke that pissed them off.

“And,” Karin tacked on to the end of her rant about Sasuke’s stubbornness, “the worst part about it? He won’t even admit he has a crush on this prince guy. He undresses the man with his eyes right in front of me and then has the absolute audacity to tell me that  _ I’m _ just seeing things.”

Sasuke only rolled his eyes at this. One of the perks of becoming a human was supposed to be that could avoid his friend’s spewing bullshit about his nonexistent relationship with Naruto. At the very most, they were friends, as of half an hour ago More likely than that they were acquaintances. Sasuke could admit his history of closely watching Naruto to the point where he prioritized it, but it was about learning through observation, not  _ falling in love _ .

Not that his friends would listen to him even if he could speak on it. His opinion didn’t matter anymore in their mind because he was so “infatuated.”  _ Ugh. _

Sasuke tuned back in to hear Suigetsu now giving his take on the matter. “I agree. I mean, it’s only a matter of time until things happen between them. Naruto practically a sitting duck when it comes to Sasuke.”

What a terrifying thought that was. Sasuke slapped him over the head, probably harder than he needed to, which in mermaid undoubtably meant “if you don’t shut the fuck up, there will be worse consequences.” Suigetsu got the message, but was still snickering. “I feel a little bad about your curse… Well, no, I don’t. You brought this on yourself, but I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t make fun of you guys anymore.”

“I think Sasuke will manage just fine,” Juugo said, and his smile was sad. Sasuke’s guess was that he’d already been forgiven for his choice, but that Juugo would never even feign approval of it. Not that Sasuke expected him to; the scars that Kimimaro’s death had left on Juugo hadn’t healed. Maybe they never would. Sasuke understood that feeling very well. It was the whole reason he’d gotten his legs, after all.

“I think he-” Karin paused, pointed ear flicking. “Shit, I think I hear someone.” Sasuke couldn’t hear anything like it, but merfolk had much better hearing than humans did. “It’d be big trouble if we got caught talking to you, or if they knew what you did. You’d better be careful around the ocean. Tsunade is always watching.” Sasuke nodded.

“Okay,” said Suigetsu, “this is goodbye, but we’ll meet again soon. A week from today?” Sasuke nodded again. He watched as his friends gave them their goodbye hits and then sunk back into the depths, the ripples they left interrupting the leaves on the water and then, after a moment, every sign that they had been there was gone. 

Sasuke still stayed, looking at his reflection. He looked less like Itachi than he had before. Some resemblance was still there, but Sasuke had been able to sleep better in the palace, helping the shadows under his eyes. And his hair, chopped off and sticking up like Karin had said. His brother wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that.

Of course, the resemblance wasn’t completely gone. He’d always look a little bit like his brother, and mirrors would always remind him of the things that he’d lost. 

Sasuke decided it was time to leave.

Sasuke took his first step up the flight of stairs leading to the castles backdoor, and then stopped. He looked down at his feet, the brown shoes and the laces twisting together. This was something his friends would never understand. Sure, shoes had floated down over the years, but wearing them, learning to tie them, and feeling the soles shift under his feet with every step; they’d never experience this.

It was so small to everyone else, but it still set him apart from the past that he’d come from. For a moment, staring down, he felt lonely. Like he belonged absolutely nowhere in this world, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would. 

A fish out of water, as they say. Hilarious.

He put it out of his mind for now. Suigetsu had given him a hard slap on the ankle before he left, which meant there was probably no jealousy coming from them. That was good. He’d see them later anyway, and maybe someday explain better why he did what he did. Sasuke didn’t owe it to them, but he wished they knew what’d he’d been thinking nonetheless. He continued up the stairs.

Sasuke was sneaking towards the backdoor. The sand helped to disguise his footsteps, helping him avoid detection, when he noticed a light out of the corner of his eye. He froze in the shadows, staring up, and was surprised to see: Naruto, sitting alone, legs dangling off a balcony.

Further into the shadows he crept until he was sure Naruto couldn’t see him, and then let himself look for just a moment. Naruto was lit up by the flickering fire of a lamp, which created an odd effect. His hair was shining, matching the fire, but it also made the shadows on his face longer. He looked… sad. Sadder than Sasuke had ever seen.

Naruto was always bouncing, full of energy and wide grins, to the point where it was getting annoying and would probably continue to be. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who could be sad, not when his smiles were so bright and his body so warm the times Sasuke had been pressed against it.

Caring about Naruto, especially his feelings, was not part of Sasuke’s mission, but it was hard not to. He’d spent so long, watching, imagining what Naruto was feeling; he couldn’t erase those habits so quickly. Even if Naruto was annoying, and naive, and just flat-out dumb, Sasuke couldn’t hate him. He hated those qualities, but not Naruto.

Exhaustion set it the moment he was in his bed that was much too big for him alone, and he was drifting off to sleep quickly. He didn’t remember his exact last thoughts before passing out the morning after, but he could remember confusion. About what, exactly, his main mission was meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	6. Bitter and Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The human world is wonderful and strange, ready to fill him up and eat him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up like 6 months later with a new chapter* Hey! I've been off ao3 for a while, mostly because my life has become work school and bills.. Maybe someday writing will be my job? Who knows! I'm happy to be writing about these losers again, though! There's so much more trouble for Sasuke I have planned, it'd be a shame to let him off the hook. Anyway, I really hope you like it!!

Once Sasuke was walking with ease, Naruto was begging to take him outside. Sakura had complained that he had to stop acting like a preschooler, like this was show-and-tell, but that didn’t bother him whatsoever. 

“It’s to celebrate you literally finding your footing,” he told Sasuke. “And also because I feel like you have a lot to learn.” Sasuke had raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s that look for? I’m a great teacher!”

They’d decided to go to the Konoha marketplace with Sakura and Lee tagging along. The two trailed behind them, discussing palace security, which Naruto told him to ignore because it’s “mind-numbing.”

Sasuke had never been somewhere like the market. It was expansive, right on the edge of town between the buildings and the forest. It was Saturday, apparently, which meant there were hundreds of people buying and selling here. Goods were being sold from stands covered in paints and scarves of brilliant colors. Konoha flags were everywhere, the spiral leaf surrounding him from all angles. It was noisy and smelly and fascinating.

Naruto insisted that he’d get lost if not for his help, and grabbed his hand to show Sasuke the way. Sasuke was tempted to shake him off, but he guessed he knew Naruto well enough now to touch like that. He was careful not to trip on the cobblestone. 

Being tugged along behind Naruto, Sasuke could see it clearer than ever; the king Naruto had been born to be. The crowd moved around him, rather than him through it. Everyone knew him, had a light in their eyes when he caught them, and the waves parted for him with ease. And, when Naruto glanced back to smile at Sasuke, Sasuke knew he could see it, too.

Naruto was uncomfortable. Usually, attention made him bloom, but this was too much. Attention was essential to growth, to survival, but Naruto was a flower far over-watered. Such a warm person must be lonely when kept at arm's length. Sasuke looked down. His grip was loose, but Naruto’s was comfortably tight. Even though Naruto was holding his hand supposedly to lead the way, he benefited more from the touch than Sasuke.

After they’d been stopped the third time by a townsperson wishing to bow and bid him a good afternoon, Naruto slipped behind the stands, pulling him along. He might have been hoping Sasuke wouldn’t notice, but when their eyes met Sasuke raised his eyebrows at him.

“Don’t even say it, I know. I should be grateful,” he said, coming to a stop in the shade. “I’m lucky to have riches, and power, and the adoration of an entire city, but…” Sasuke just waited, letting no reaction cross his face. 

“I wish I could walk through here like everyone else. I wish people would be rude to me and step on my feet. I don’t want people’s eyes on all of me all the time! I don’t even like the material things either. I don’t need gold jewelry or a bath the size of a swimming pool. It’s just…”

Sasuke waved his hand. He didn’t need much more of an explanation than that. Naruto kept waiting for Sasuke to pass some kind of judgement on him, but he wasn’t in much place to do anything more about Naruto’s hang-ups than hear them. He motioned for them to continue along the secret route Naruto had set them on.

“I think you’re going to like this,” Naruto called back to him. They emerged back into the sun and stopped in front of a large stand painted grass green. It was overflowing with produce, so much that it was hard to see the person running the stand. Sasuke had names for some of them, but many he didn’t. He wanted to learn the words behind them right away, the ones the dictionary hadn’t given him.

Sasuke pointed at the first thing that had caught his eye. He knew the name from books, but he’d never actually tried one before. They looked somewhat similar to apples, but the leaves spreading in a star from the stem were a rich green, and the fruit itself a brilliant red color. They shone brightly in the sun like jewels.

“Tomatoes? Do you want one?” Sasuke nodded, motioning toward the biggest one in the pile. Naruto spoke to the seller, who reassured Naruto they could try whatever they liked. “Have you ever tried one of these before?” he asked, dropping the tomato into Sasuke’s hand. It was smooth and slightly warmed by the sun. He shook his head, and Naruto chuckled. “I won’t spoil it for you, then.”

Biting into it, it wasn’t like an apple at all. He’d thought it might be crunchy, but it was soft and full of juice and seeds. He could feel it drip out of the corners of his mouth but he was struggling to care because this was the  _ best thing he’d ever eaten _ .

“We usually don’t just bite into them like that, but…” Naruto shrugged, watching Sasuke take another huge bite. “Better than raw fish, I guess. Don’t eat the stem!”

That warning came slightly too late as Sasuke choked on the stiff stem. That part wasn’t as good as the rest of the tomato, but it couldn’t ruin it for him. He pointed at the tomatoes again. The seller offered a small bag to Naruto, even as he mumbled that he didn’t understand how this was Sasuke’s very first tomato.

“Okay, if you like the big ones, these are going to blow your mind.” Naruto placed in his palm what seemed to be a tiny tomato, which was orange rather than red. “It’s called a cherry tomato. Before you ask, no cherries in it, that’s just what it’s called.”

This one was even sweeter than the one before, and it popped.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes then, motioning to the rest of the table. Naruto laughed again. “No, we don’t have little versions of everything. Just tomatoes and cucumbers and some other stuff. I wish there were, though. That’d be adorable.” 

The end of his sentence trailed of slightly, and Naruto’s eyes dropped from Sasuke’s eyes to his mouth. Sasuke tensed, raising his hands slightly as if to protect himself. “No, I’m not- Sorry, but you have tomato juice on your face.” Sasuke sighed and rolled his eyes; that cleared  _ that _ up. “Can I get it for you?” 

Sasuke shook his head and rubbed at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. When he looked down, a few seeds had caught on the fabric. He was surprised they looked so similar to the fish eggs he was careful not to disturb while rummaging for treasure on the seafloor. In his case, those days were done, but he imagined Juugo would be just as fascinated as he was.

Tonight, he’d be meeting with his friends, and distance hadn’t faded his irritating fondness for the three. He picked through the overflowing food in front of him, taking particular interest in the ones he hadn’t encountered in books. He liked the tiny trees and what appeared to be peppers but small and skinny.

“Those are broccoli,” Naruto said about the trees, “and those are-” His words cut off in horror as Sasuke popped one into his mouth. “Those are insanely spicy, Sasuke, you can’t eat one like that.” Sasuke ignored him, crunching away anyway. It  _ was _ spicy. His tongue felt like it was on fire and tears pricked at his eyes,  yet even this felt happy. He hadn’t known that food could hurt in this way. It left him with a smile so slight he hadn’t expected Naruto to notice it.

“You’re so strange, you know that?” Naruto told him, handing coins to the seller. Sasuke glared. “It’s not an insult! All humans are kinda weird, it’s just that you don’t seem afraid of what you don’t know.”

He had never been afraid in the darkest depths of the ocean, so why should he start now? Sasuke turned as a new smell caught his nose, completely unfamiliar. He moved towards it, despite Naruto protesting that he wait up.

This was how he spent the afternoon, going everywhere, trying everything, with Naruto doing his best to keep up. What he’d smelled was bread, warm and crispy. There were sweets, too, which he tried and nearly spit out. Naruto complained he could eat a whole raw pepper but not one bite of a chocolate cookie. There was cheese and milk, oranges, tea, a multitude of spices; it was overwhelming.

Naruto had found a friend, who was selling what Sasuke guessed was noodles. He didn’t have much interest in whatever they were discussing and wandered off.

Without Naruto with him, the crowd didn’t part. Sasuke, as a rule, despised unnecessary contact with strangers. Still, he brushed against the bodies moving in currents of their own, ignoring it completely. Many of the townspeople made disgruntled noises, but in the ocean, sometimes you had to ignore currents You may end up miles from where you intended if you don’t.

He found a stand he had seen on the way in. It was covered in purple fabric, and strings of little metal stars swayed in the breeze, clinking against each other lightly. There was an old women in front of her wares with a crinkled smile, and a young dark-haired boy. He couldn’t have been much older than five or six; he could barely see over the counter.

When the woman saw him, her eyes blew wide. “You came back!” she said suddenly, reaching for Sasuke’s hands on the counter which he quickly pulled away. Her smile faded as she tilted her head. “Oh, I’m so sorry, child. You looked like someone I knew.”

He looked at her with distrust. So, humans didn’t eat raw fish, but felt totally comfortable grabbing hands with someone they’d never been introduced to? That was at least impolite, and at worst an act of aggression in Atlantica. He stayed wary, but this old lady probably wasn’t going to swing on him.

“Is there anything that interests you?” Sasuke looked down; her table was crowded with candles. Short and tall, or shaped like suns and roses and pumpkins. He picked up one that first caught his eye. It was a pale blue and shaped like a lotus flower, delicate leaves expertly carved, unfurling around the string. He knew there was a name for it, but it wasn’t coming to mind. When he lifted it to his nose, it had a pleasant smell. Not as sweet as the honey he’d tried earlier, but similar. Sasuke held it up to the woman.

“Oh, you like that one? My grandson carved it, he’s only six, but very talented.” Sasuke looked down at the boy, who looked back up. His eyes were shining, as if he knew Sasuke, even though he had no memory of ever meeting him. Sasuke scowled and he ducked under the counter. “These are special candles. They float on water, but still stay lit! See?” She took the candle from him and placed it in a bowl of water in front. Sure enough, it stayed afloat. 

Sasuke picked it up again and searched in the little pouch of money Naruto had given him. He could see the price, but no one had thought to mention how much each coin represented. Naruto should have an endless amount of riches, however, unlike this candle-maker. Sasuke dropped the whole bag into her hand.

She opened it and her jaw dropped. “Sir, this is beyond generous, I can’t possibly-” Sasuke had already turned to walk away, staring down at his candle. His friends would love this, especially Karin. She had always bragged that her hair was like an underwater flame itself. 

He wandered slightly out of the crowd, more towards the tree-line of the forest. Tacked to their trunks were papers, flaring out like feathers. Help wanted signs, posters for missing pets and children, and the like. 

There were carvings, too, on one tree in particular that bloomed with cherry blossoms. Names and dates and initials written within a big heart. There were so many of them Sasuke had to guess this was some kind of tradition. He approached one. The initials were  _ S.H. _ , and then underneath,  _ my flower _ . 

There was kind of an equivalent to this tradition that Sasuke’s mother had told him about. This was done under the nose of the ruling queen, of course, but young daring merfolk would swim up to the human docks at night and carve the name of their beloved in the wood.

_ “If you’re brave enough to swim all the way up there, well,” _ his mother had said,  _ “you must really love that person.” _ She’d said that Sasuke’s father had done that for her, which he couldn’t believe for a moment. He had thought he’d inherited his father’s disinterest in romance.

Sasuke’s fingers traveled over the ridges and dips of the bark. Whenever merfolk needed something written down long-term, it was through carving. He picked through different names and messages, some of which he was surprised humans would admit such emotions so publicly, even anonymously. From tree to tree he went, until something else caught his eye.

A wanted poster. The face on the front looked to be an old man, face deeply creased with wrinkles and crouched over. He was wearing a mask of what looked to be water moss covering his nose and below, and a black cloak painted with red waves. None of these seemed out of place for a criminal, but his eyes captured Sasuke’s attention. They looked dead in their sockets, as if there was no soul behind them at all. 

Underneath was written his height, weight and more description of his appearance. He was “highly dangerous”, apparently, and part of a group called the Akatsuki. He was wanted for…  _ Deep occultism _ . He hadn’t heard anything called that in all the books he’d read, but he could guess. The waves, the water moss, occultism; sea magic users, mostly sea witches and their familiars. This wasn’t new information; he knew that merfolk weren’t welcome on the land. He got to the last sentence;  _ dead or alive _ . Sasuke felt pins across his skin. 

With one last look into those eyes, Sasuke turned back to the market. He was here with one mission, and to escape the life of merfolk. It won’t do him good to let this weigh on him. 

He’d lost track of Naruto; he should probably find him again, at least to tell him he might have spent a small fortune of Naruto’s money on a dinky candle. He pushed back into the crowd without much notice until he slammed directly into a brick wall. Well, it couldn’t have been, because the wall was the one who went tumbling to the ground. Instead, it was a man much taller than Sasuke, now sitting in a pile of what he’d been carrying. He looked positively furious.

“What the hell?” he hissed, clambering to his feet. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, asshole?” A few people glanced their way, but just moved around them. Sasuke couldn’t say anything in response to this, but even if he could, he didn’t feel like it. It was just an accident. He turned to walk away. There was a large hand on his shoulder before he even made it two steps, pulling him back around. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Sasuke slapped the hand off his shoulder hard with a hiss; he’d had about enough of unsolicited human contact for the day. He sent the man a look that he hoped said  _ “lay your hand on me, one more time” _ . 

“What, no fucking apology? You don’t have anything to say for yourself, huh?”

_ Well, no.  _ Sasuke tried to think of a way to get a message across. The only thing that came to mind was a gesture Naruto and Sakura had exchanged during a friendly argument a few days ago. It was probably rude, though Sasuke had no idea how much. This seemed as good a time as any to test it out.

In hindsight, it actually  _ wasn’t _ a good time.

Had this been underwater, it would have been easier. Sasuke had been an excellent fighter; he’d driven Tsunade’s soldiers insane by being better than half of their ranks combined but refusing to join. Itachi taught him first, and then he taught himself, and he was  _ good _ . Underwater.

As it stood now, he could see the man winding back, his fist shooting forward, but Sasuke hadn’t mastered his legs. He stepped back, landing on his heel uneven, and even though he’d been expecting it, Sasuke couldn’t stop it from stinging. The man’s fist met his face, clipping his jaw and slamming against his nose. 

By some miracle, the hit only sent him staggering rather than tumbling to the ground, but he felt blood gush from his nose immediately, seeping into his open mouth and filling it with a metallic tang. He lifted his hand to his nose and looked at the bright red, taking a moment of appreciation, then spit the blood into the man’s face.

He raised his hand again with rage in his eyes. “You little fucking-”

The man was interrupted, by who Sasuke could only imagine to be Naruto. He pushing him behind him. His face was turned away, but he was obviously angry.

“Do it. I dare you.” His voice was ice cold.

The man's jaw dropped, freezing in place. “Your- Your highness!” Naruto tilted his head at this, and the man lowered his arm. “I wasn’t… He started it! He knocked me over and refused to apologize.”

“You’re telling me a man who’s literally unable to speak wouldn’t apologize to you?”

“I had  _ no idea _ ,” he said, scrambling to pick up everything he dropped. “If I knew he was with you, I wouldn’t have done anything, I swear.” As quickly as he’d run headfirst into Sasuke, he bowed and hurried in the opposite direction.

Naruto turned immediately, much too close to Sasuke’s face. “Are you okay?” he asked, reaching for Sasuke. Sasuke resisted his touch, stepping away with one hand up. “Come on, let me see.” Sasuke stood his ground, so Naruto huffed and looked from a distance. “It looks pretty bad. That’s a lot of blood.” Sasuke rolled his eyes;  _ no shit _ .

“We should find Sakura, she’d be more help than I would.” His hand brushed against Sasuke’s, and Sasuke pushed it away. Naruto looked at Sasuke’s profile. He sounded hurt. “Why are you pissed at me? I saved you from being injured worse than you already are.”

And that was just it, wasn’t it? Sasuke didn’t get saved, ever. He could do anything and everything for himself, and he prided himself on that. Being human was still something he was getting used to, and that had weakened him, but even so; if he was the weaker party in a fight, he’d take every hit that came his way. It’s what he deserved for his shortcomings, and he’d make sure to learn from that pain, and never let it happen again.

But, Naruto had intervened. Without lifting a finger, he’d put fear in that man that Sasuke could have ever achieved. That was damagining his pride much more than any lost fight would. He just shook his head, spotting a head of pink hair in the crowd and heading that way.

Sakura was absolutely furious with both Naruto and Sasuke as she dragged them back to the palace. “It’s your first day out, and you’re picking fights? What’s wrong with you? And Naruto, you let him out of your sight. Are you an idiot? You deserve a punch in the face, too!” Lee did his best to calm her down, reminding her brightly that it could have been much worse, which didn’t help her mood.

She did from time to time look between Sasuke and Naruto, probably questioning the lack of interaction. Naruto looked like he wanted to say something, but instead just kicked a rock along the path. The prince was probably used to rescuing people. Sasuke laid it out on his mind. Naruto had picked himself up off the beach and had stopped that idiot from hitting Sasuke again. Sasuke had twice saved Naruto drowning. They were even now, that’s all.

Once they returned to the palace, Sakura bandaged him up in the infirmary, still grumbling as she rummaged through a bag of supplies. “You could have broken your nose. Now you have these bruises, and I have blood on my favorite shirt.” Sasuke wanted to point out her shirt was red in the first place, but maybe it was better that he couldn’t.

She held up a mirror, and she’d been right; he looked somewhat grim. Purple bruises spread from one puffy eye across his nose to the other. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to Sasuke, and he didn’t see it as looking “bad”. All kinds of scars were accepted in the sea, as they were so easy to get. The hundreds of tiny knicks and scars covering Sasuke’s arms and chest were commonplace. He shrugged, and stood up. Sakura sighed.

The door creaked open and Naruto poked his head in. “Hey. I need Sasuke for something.”

“Feel free,” Sakura told him. “I’m tired of seeing that beat up face with such a carefree expression. He’ll be back here next week, I’m sure of it.”

“Hopefully not,” was all Naruto said as he held open the door for Sasuke.

They walked in silence until they stood in front of a familiar tall double-door. Sasuke immediately shook his head. “Don’t be like that,” Naruto said, reaching for the handle. Sasuke motioned pointedly at the door to the training room that probably held Kakashi behind it. “Kakashi doesn’t hate you! He’s just kind of like that, you know?” Sasuke shook his head again, turning in the opposite position.

“Sasuke.”

Sasuke stopped. He might have kept walking if not for Naruto’s tone. “I’ve got the feeling you won’t talk to me about it, but it’s obvious you don’t want me to protect you. I didn’t do it to offend you, but I’d do it again, no matter how much you hate it. We don’t have to go in now, okay? Just talk to Kakashi soon.  _ Learn _ from him. Protect yourself so I don’t have to. So I don’t worry about you.”

Sasuke watched Naruto’s back as they climbed a large staircase, his words replaying. Naruto had been genuine about his concern for Sasuke, and Sasuke was struggling to understand. They were friends, as Naruto had put it, but he barely knew Sasuke. Sasuke couldn’t even speak to him. Yet Naruto cared so much. Not just Sasuke at that, he cared about  _ everything _ so much. If Sasuke took such responsibility for everyone around him, he’d go insane. 

It had crossed his mind that this might be how Naruto is when he’s mad, but Sasuke doubted that. He was irritated. Anything that wasn’t a brilliant smile Naruto seemed to keep in darkness. His face on that night Sasuke saw him on his balcony was one of exhaustion from keeping everything pushed down. He didn’t used to be like that, back when Sasuke was young and watched him from the rocks. Laughter and screams and sobs would spring from him freely, but with age, something had changed.

Well, that was true about Sasuke, too, and maybe about everyone as they grew up. Still.

Naruto knocked on a door, and a familiar voice from within granted him entrance. Iruka was sitting at a round table, surrounded by pens and paper and piles of books. He looked tired, but smiled at Naruto. “Sit, sit,” he said, standing to pull two chairs over. “I’m sorry we’re just doing this now, but my trip was longer than expected.”

“You’re overworking yourself, Iruka,” Naruto told him.

“Oh, stop treating me like an old man, I’m fine.” Sasuke sat down beside him, tilting his head to see what Iruka was looking at. It appeared to be a book full of pictures of hands in different positions. Sasuke hadn’t seen anything like it before, and would have liked to turn the page, but feigned disinterest when Iruka looked his way. “So, how have you been faring?”

Sasuke pointed to his bruised face, asking Iruka to answer his own question.

“He got in a scuffle today. It wasn’t his fault,” Naruto clarified. “Or at least mostly not his fault. Besides that, from today, it’s pretty obvious that he completely understands our language. He can write his own name, right, but I don’t know if-”

Sasuke slammed his hand on the table, making them both jump. He pointed to pen and paper, just out of reach, and Iruka pushed them his way. It took a few tries to get the ink running, and even after, he knew his handwriting wasn’t perfect, but oh well. He flipped the paper around and shoved it towards Naruto.

_ Stop talking about me like I’m not sitting right here, your highness. _

Naruto stared down at the paper, going slightly pink. “Oh. Sorry.”

Sasuke only sighed, and took the paper back to write on the other side.

_ Before you ask, yes, I can write and understand your language perfectly. No, I don’t remember anything from before washing up on the beach besides my name and my age. Sasuke Uchiha, 20.  _

Finding out his own age in human years had been interesting, as merfolk didn’t tell time in the same way. Before the event, Itachi had told him he was five. After that, he never missed the fireworks on Naruto’s birthday, which he used to count his own human years. So, he was probably 20, maybe a little younger or older.

He handed this note back to them. It was better to feign ignorance about his past than have to put together some story about his life as a goat-herder from a distant island that would be hard to keep straight. 

“Has it been difficult so far for you to navigate?” Sasuke considered this, and slowly shook his head. First off, he wasn’t much of a talker anyway. If he’d been alone, it might have been bumpy, but when he thought about it, Naruto was remarkably good at understanding what he was meaning to say. He motioned towards Naruto.

“Oh, uh…” Naruto looked nervously between them. “It hasn’t been too hard because he’s had me to guide him. I’m helpful, but,” Naruto said, looking at Sasuke’s expression and wave of his fingers, “maybe to the point of annoyance.”

Iruka blinked. “You got all that from just hand motions?” They both nodded. “How strange. You two must think very alike.” Sasuke met Naruto’s eyes; they both knew that wasn’t the truth, but there was a quiet understanding between them. He hadn’t expected Naruto to be able to read him like that, and while it was helpful now, it’ll probably cause him trouble later. At least Naruto didn’t actually know Sasuke’s thoughts.

“It sounds like you understand a lot, Sasuke, which is great,” Iruka told him. “And it’s wonderful that Naruto can help you, but I think that you should learn sign language.” Iruka flipped through the pages of the book in front of him until he reached one that he showed Sasuke. It was the alphabet, and underneath each was a drawing of a hand in different positions.

“You probably have a lot you’d like to say, more complex than what Naruto can infer. Additionally, you’re not always going to have time to write things out. I can teach you how to sign, if you’d like. It’d make your life easier. Personally, I think everyone should know how to fingerspell, regardless of how well they speak or hear.”

Humans could speak with their hands? Sasuke was agreeing to learning before he could think twice, just staring at the book. Merfolk had nothing like this. There was a physical tapping language, used for hunting, so anyone hard of hearing could use that, but it looked like the hands were creating the letter physically, painting a sentence.

Sasuke looked down at his hands. His fingers were shorter now, and the webs between them were missing. Where his nails used to be viciously sharp, they were now dull. These hands would be no good for killing fish or untangling sea reeds, but they were perfect for learning these new words.

“I’ll learn, too,” Naruto said suddenly, making both Iruka and Sasuke turn to look at him. “What? If I’m going to be king, I should know how to sign. Besides, you’d be lonely with no one to talk to.”

“Sakura can sign fluently.”

Naruto ignored this. “I can study when I put my heart into it! Let me learn with Sasuke.” Iruka put a hand over his face, saying that he’d prayed he was done having Naruto as a student, but ultimately agreed.

They didn’t have time then to do much more than learn the alphabet, which was easy. After that, Iruka decided they should learn some of the history of sign language before they got any further. He searched around his office to find a stack of books that he assigned them to read. Naruto looked over them at Sasuke and raised his hand.

_ B-O-R-I-N-G. _

Sasuke sighed.

_ S-H-U-T U-P. _

Sasuke was still practicing the alphabet to himself that night, fingers beginning to cramp. He had been waiting around for the castle to fall drowsy and quiet so he could sneak out to see his friends. When the palace was finally still, he was ready to go. He’d hate to miss them, after all. Taking the floating candle off his bedside table and creeping across the room, he made his way to the kitchen.

He’d tried so many amazing things it was hard to pick what to bring for them, but he tried to get a little bit of everything. The basket filled steadily until it weighed heavy on its handles; bread, milk, cheese, fruits, vegetables, dried meat and honey. He took everything he could afford, and found a box of matches in one of the drawers.

When he made it down the stairs and through the sand to their meeting place in the shade, they were all ready waiting for him. “Well, look at you!” Karin called with a grin. “Last time we saw you you were wobbling around like a baby deer, but now you’re all grown up.” Sasuke sighed, sitting down at the edge of the water. Karin had never seen a deer, only read the phrase from one of the translated books Sasuke had given her.

“Whoa, your face looks like shit, dude. Whatcha got there?” That was how Suigetsu said hello. He immediately began poking at the basket. “Something in there smells good.” Juugo was interested, too, swimming closer to it. He lightly flicked water off his fingers at Sasuke. It was a small token of friendship, but after spending the day crushed between human bodies, it was nice to experience something familiar.

Sasuke reached around, looking for a stick, and then wrote in the dirt.  _ Human food. _

Suigetsu laughed, immediately reaching in to rummage around. “Tsunade always said human food was poisonous.” He returned with a handful of cherries that he squeezed too hard, some of the juice running down his wrist. He popped one in his mouth and then gagged. “This has a fucking rock in it!”

After erasing his previous words, he wrote  _ seed _ . Sasuke pointed at all the fruits with “rocks” in them, though with their sharp teeth and strong jaws his friends could power through them anyway.

“What is this?” Karin asked. “Is this bread?” She tore into the loaf and tried to stuff nearly half of it in her mouth. It was hard to understand her through the food, but she seemed to be asking for cheese next. She’d read in a book once that humans sometimes eat warm bread with soft cheese and hadn’t stopped bothering him about it for a whole week, even after he reminded her it’s be too hard to steal.

He passed it over and she stuffed that in, too, her voice muffled but happy. Juugo was quiet but his eyes were glowing, holding a tomato in the same way Sasuke had.  _ Favorite _ , he wrote.

“While we’re eating, we have to catch up a little.” Milk dripped down Suigetsu’s chin, and Sasuke wanted to tell him to wipe it off. That, he realized, was something human; merfolk don’t care how you eat. Wasting food was considered deeply disrespectful, but chewing loudly and spitting wasn’t given a second thought. Sasuke looked instead at his feet.

“Tsunade hasn’t caught on yet,” Karin told him, “though she had ANBU up our asses for the first week after you left. Probably did some sneaking around our apartments, which they’re not supposed to do, but whatever.”

“I think you’re safe,” Juugo said. Still, he kept glancing around every minute or so.

“If you think we’re safe, you sure look nervous.”

“I just think he should keep away from the shore. This is fine, it’s farther into human territory than they’d ever dare to go, but there’s still partrols to the big rocks and back. Which is how you got caught in the first place.”

Sasuke felt like that warning was a little redundant, but nodded anyway, if only to put Juugo’s mind at ease. He, unfortunately, still hadn’t completely rid his conscious of putting Juugo through what had happened with Kimimaro a second time. Even though he smiled and ate like the rest of them, he was scared for Sasuke. And Sasuke had forfeited his ability to tell him anything beyond what he could write in the dirt.

“How’s your prince doing now? Have you done anything yet?” Suigetsu asked, then wiggled his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally done...it?” Sasuke leaned and slapped Suigetsu over the head harder than he had in years, making Suigetsu shriek. “Calm down, it was a joke! Since when have you been so damn sensitive?”

Sasuke wanted to tell him about the curse’s condition so he’d shut the fuck up, but again, he had no ability to do that. He just put a finger to his lips with a stern shake of his head. It wasn’t like Sasuke was going to fall in love with Naruto, much less be physical with him; still, even just talking about it was no good. His soul was on the line here, after all. No need to make anything more complicated than it needs to be.

Even though Karin was probably also dying to know, she told Suigetsu to drop it, and they all ate in silence for a while. Well, moderate silence; there was still ravenous gulping and crunching and chewing. Sasuke was thinking of suggesting they savor it, but he understood; having a diet mainly consisted of water spinach and raw fish made even just one peach feel like heaven.

When he went to put his hand in his pocket, he remembered, and waved his hand to get the attention of his friends. He found the matches in the basket, striking it and watching his friends go wide-eyed as the flame appeared just above his fingers. He lowered it to the wick of the candle. After a few moment, the fire took, and Sasuke set the candle gently into the water. 

The water illuminated around it, and the flame flickered in the breeze. Karin, Suigetsu and Juugo crowded around it the best that they could, careful not to let it go out. When the flame reflected, their eyes appeared almost gold.

“That’s amazing,” Karin murmured. “It’s like the human world meeting the ocean.” Envy was obvious in the voice, but it wasn’t tinged with bitterness. She was envious of the air for keeping the flame alight when her native waters never could, but was content watching from afar.

They talked longer, about things Sasuke had little interest in. He had never cared for gossip, and cared even less now that he had left all those people behind. Equally, he now lived in a palace with all the human objects he could ever desire; hearing Suigetsu go on and on about the locket he had found wasn’t of much interest.

“I had to go way down deep to find it, but there’s some little pictures in it,” he said. “I’ll bring it next time we meet, so you can find out who it is.” Sasuke agreed, even though he knew he never would. The human world was vast, and if Suigetsu had found it as deep down as he said, the person it belonged to was either far from here or dead. Still, he agreed.

“And I’ll bring a book for you to translate,” Karin added. “I can’t read the title, but it looks really interesting. There’s a bunch of drawings inside of princesses and birds and some animals I’ve never seen.” Sasuke agreed to this, too. He felt compelled to; again, his guilt. Sasuke had been the one who could read the human’s language, and he’d left. A wealth of knowledge was unavailable to them now. So, he agreed. 

It got later, colder, and eventually it was time to go. Juugo carefully collected the cherry pits in his hand, saying that he might be able to get something to grow. “We’ll be here again, a week from today, but if you know you won’t be able to sneak out, just write a message in the dirt,” Karin instructed him. “If we can’t be there, we’ll try to leave a note of our own. Sound good?”

Sasuke nodded, accepted their farewell splashes, and then he was alone again. He looked into the basket, finding it completely empty except for one tiny blueberry. It was unripe, but Sasuke appreciated the tart flavor more than the sweet. He took his bare feet out of the water, putting them back into his shoes and tying them up.

The candle was still lit. He leaned over the water and guided it back into his palm. He smiled, thinking of his friends’ amazement.

That smile faded when he blew it out. The wax had melted, as wax does, but it had disfigured the beautiful flower he’d been so enchanted with at the market. It’s delicate petals now sagged, dripping onto those below them, and where the flame had been lit, the pale blue was now blackened.

He spent a few moments just looking at it. He put it on his bedside table to keep, ugly as it was. It was a good reminder.

The next morning greeted him early. He’d forgotten to shut the curtains and a beam of bright sunlight blinded his tired eyes. He blinked against it, sitting up and stretching. 

Sasuke did his best to follow the morning routine from what he’d observed. The strangest of them were the little brushes they used to brush their teeth. The merfolk equivalent to this would be the tiny suckerfish you could sometimes convince to clean your teeth, but that was cosmetic uses. Merfolk were similar to sharks; their teeth never go bad and if they get knocked out, new ones grow back. Humans, however, had one set of teeth, and liked them bright white and clean. 

After this, he’d take another bigger brush that was for hair. Again, tangled hair was of no issue to merfolks, though long neat braids were always appreciated. Sasuke still wasn’t completely used to having such short hair; only royal soldiers or ANBU ever had hair this short. On top of that, his hair stuck up in a strange way in the back that no amount of brushing could cure, so he’d just given up.

Pulling on his clothes was only easier over time, but hearing a knock at his door made him scramble to get everything on. “Sasuke, you up?” Naruto voice called with another knock, and that was one thing that drove Sasuke insane; not being able to say “come in” or “go away”. He just either had to open the door or wait until the person on the other side made up their mind themselves.

“So you  _ are _ up,” he said when Sasuke opened the door with an expression he hoped represented how ornery he felt at the moment. Naruto only laughed. “Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Sasuke had woken up on the same side he always had; was that meant to be the wrong side? 

He tilted his head at Naruto.

“You don’t know that? It just means, like, you started your day off bad. You’re cranky, or in a hurry. Maybe both, which is what you seem to be.” Naruto gestured to Sasuke’s chest. “Um, usually we button those all the way up.”

Another thing Sasuke couldn’t understand. He was heading outside, where it was hot, and besides, it looked good. He wasn’t even a woman, as humans had even more hang ups about female nakedness than males. What difference did it make if his shirt was only buttoned at the bottom or all the way up?

While Sasuke was quick to fingerspell his words, Naruto took a moment to piece it together.

“ _ It looks better this way? _ ” Sasuke nodded, and to his surprise, Naruto went slightly pink. He reached for Sasuke’s shirt, fumbling with the first button before securing it and moving to the next one. “Even if it does, everyone would be staring at you.” His fingers brushed against Sasuke’s chest.

Once he was finished, Sasuke found a small pad of paper and a pen from his pocket. Iruka had told him it would be a good idea to always keep it with him, in case he wanted to do more than fingerspell for now.

_ “Did you come here just dress me or is there something you want?” _

“Yes, there is, I swear” Naruto reassured him. “I’m really not supposed to, but I’m going out sailing today.” Sasuke was surprised; Naruto was inviting him? Sasuke had only ever read about sailing in books. He’d probably be useless. Besides, it wouldn’t be a good idea, especially with Tsunade’s forces still on the lookout for him.

He was thinking of a way to turn Naruto down when he continued: “Could you cover for me while I’m gone? Just if anyone asks.”

Sasuke winced internally. He wasn’t remotely invited.  _ Fuck, that’s embarassing. _ While it seemed Naruto could read his mind sometimes, Sasuke was glad he couldn’t. He reminded himself that he’d known Naruto much longer than Naruto had known him and nodded.

“Great, thank you! Just, like, I don’t know. Tell them I’m doing charity work or rescuing kittens from tall trees or something.” Sasuke pointed at his mouth, and then spelled:

_ “Me?” _

“You don’t need a voice to be my partner-in-crime, just the right attitude!” Naruto waved as he left. “I’ll be back early this evening. If I’m not, appoint a new king immediately.”

Sasuke knew this was a joke, but it sent a pang to his chest. Naruto may be able to throw his life around like that, but as someone who had saved it twice, Sasuke couldn’t help but be invested. It also was painful to know that he wouldn’t be able to save him from something like that again; If Naruto fell into the ocean, unconscious or broken, he’d just keep sinking.

He retreated down the hall, the black and orange fabric of his jacket adorned with his family crest. Sasuke tried not to think about it.

What he thought about instead was something that Naruto had said the day before at the market:  _ “I don’t want people’s eyes on all of me all the time. I don’t even like the material things either. I don’t need gold jewelry or a bath the size of a swimming pool. It’s just…” _

_ The size of a pool, huh? _ Sasuke had been itching to find out if that was true since he’d said it. Swimming in the ocean would make him a fool; that’d be the easiest way to get caught by Tsunade, or drown, frankly. He was sure that his old friends missed him; a few seagulls would occasionally land on the roof outside his room and scream at him to throw them fish bones again. He’d especially been fond of the more dangerous creatures, like poisonous eels and sharks. He could think of one mako shark in particular that might kill him simply by trying to play.

But he wanted to swim. He missed it. Hearing the waves outside his window but never touching felt like he was encaged in the palace at times. With Naruto out until the evening, this might be the perfect time to find out what he was talking about.

It was early enough that the palace wasn’t bustling with activity yet, so he didn’t feel much need to sneak around. He remembered where Naruto had shown him his room; a room with tall doors painted intricately and shiny gold handles a few floors up. Sasuke approached casually, just in case someone wanted to turn the corner. No one did, so he tugged on the handles, and the doors opened. They clicked closed behind him.

Naruto’s room was just as messy as he expected it would be. The floor was hardly walkable, covered with clothes and empty containers. His bed, unkempt, and his windows were full of hanging plants. They were remarkably alive, though Sasuke guessed Sakura probably had something to do with making that happen.

Sasuke walked over to Naruto’s desk, which was funny because it was one of the only things that had little on it. His bookshelves were empty, too. There were official papers that had doodles in the corners, and only one book. It was their sign language textbook. Naruto must have been serious about learning the language with him. There were plenty of letters and cards from his friends, but the only pictures were of a blonde man and a red-haired woman. Sasuke could only guess they were his parents. He turned away.

It goes without saying that everything was some shade of orange or blue. They clashed horribly together, but Sasuke wouldn’t have expected anything else. There were two doors across the room, and when he opened the first, it was a closet with nothing hanging in it. Sasuke sighed; of course, everything was on the floor.

It occurred to him that he should feel guilty for being in Naruto’s room without permission, but Sasuke didn’t see how else he’d get in there, and he’d already made up his mind that he’s finding this bathroom.

If that was the closet, then the other door should be the bathroom. He opened it to find he was correct, and Naruto, in turn, had been correct in his description of the tub. It was huge, three times as long and wide as a normal tub. Sasuke shut the door behind him and knelt at the edge; it was deep, too. He could stand on the bottom and not surface at all.

Again, he considered any reservations about using Naruto’s tub, but he should turn on the faucets now if he wanted it to fill up soon. There were two knobs marked with letters, and he turned them both. He wanted to imitate the temperature of the sea on a summer’s day. Water shot out in a stream much wider and more forceful than he’d expected, splashing his clothing.

That didn’t matter much as they were coming off anyway. He took off his shoes and then his socks, sticking his feet in the flow of water for a few moments. Then came everything else. Sasuke kicked his pants and underwear off his ankles. Finally, he was free of the stupid human clothing. Whenever he wore pants in particular, he imagined his tail trying to fit through one of the legs. So pointless.

It was still going to take a while longer for the tub to fill up. There wasn’t much else in the bathroom besides the tub. The floor and walls were tilted in green and blue. No windows, which was for the best, but there was a huge mirror. 

Sasuke walked up to it and stood. In all honesty, he hadn’t yet had a chance to look himself over fully since washing up on the beach.

The first thing he noticed wasn’t his new appearance but the absence of something. He should have noticed long before now that the necklace he’d been given by Naruto was missing, but he’d been so busy. It would have been a bad idea to bring it with him, because he’d have to explain why he had it if Naruto ever happened across it. Still. Sasuke pressed his fingers to the center of his chest. He hated to think about it buried in the depths.

He decided to put that out of his mind. It was gone, along with his tail, which brought his eyes downward.

As far as he could tell, he was normal. Normal toes, toenails, feet, legs. All his muscles, organs and cartilage appeared to be in the right place, according to the medical journals he’d read. Sasuke was lucky, he supposed. All Orochimaru promised was to make him human, and Sasuke could have done a lot worse. He touched his sides, where skin used to disappear into scales. The transition between his new body parts and the old was perfect. His legs didn’t have all the same scars he had on top, of course, but that wouldn’t be noticeable unless someone knew his body well.

Still, he couldn’t be sure. What if every other human had something he didn’t, and he wouldn’t know? There wasn’t much he could do about that, unless he could enlist a human to help. How would he phrase that:  _ “Hey, Naruto, I need to see you naked. For scientific purposes.” _

Humans were so fussy about nakedness. Naruto, in particular, seemed squeamish. Any time Sasuke was even some level of undressed, Naruto would go red and couldn’t look at him. Showing up in his backyard completely naked, Sasuke could somewhat understand, but even just his shirt unbuttoned made Naruto blush. 

Sasuke couldn’t imagine what level of red Naruto would turn if he wandered into his bathroom with Sasuke in his tub. Where would his mind go first? Would he think that Sasuke snuck in there with no intention of getting caught, or would Naruto think it was intentional?

Sasuke watched his own face tinge pink. He wasn’t an idiot; Sasuke thought the rules about nakedness shouldn’t exist, but he knew why they were there. Nakedness meant something different to humans, especially if touch was involved. He remembered Naruto’s fingers on his stomach and chest as he buttoned his shirt, and on Sasuke’s hips that night on the beach...

Sasuke turned away from the mirror with a growl. He didn’t come here to embarrass himself again, he came here to swim.

The tub was nearly all of the way full. Sasuke noticed some bowls and boxes next to the tub. They looked like soaps and salts, all listed with different herbs and fruits. Sasuke smelled each and then dumped a little bit in. He might as well, as he didn’t know when he’d be in a tub like this again.

It didn’t take very long for Sasuke to think he may have added a bit too much. The scent in the room was so strong he nearly coughed and towers of bubbles had filled the tub. He turned off the faucets and stuck his hand down into the cloud to feel that the temperature was perfect.

Besides this soap fiasco, it felt magnificent to swim again. Even though walking with his new legs had been a struggle, Sasuke had no issues picking up swimming. His body twisted and kicked freely. His hair was smooth like seaweed, how he was accustomed to it being. He missed the smooth rocks or sand that usually covered the seafloor, but he didn’t mind the tile either. The little fish and plants that would usually accompany him, well, there wasn’t much of a replacement for that, nor for the taste of sea salt. Still, it was better than nothing at all.

Floating on the surface, Sasuke closed his eyes. He could live with this. He could live with only swimming in tubs, as long as he was human. He was going to experience what he never could and get his justice. Once he’d found Itachi, he could cut all ties with Atlantica. Someday, he wouldn’t even miss the water at all. And he could survive that.

Sasuke wasn’t sure how long it was safe to be there. It really wouldn’t be in his best interest to get caught. He’d lose Naruto’s trust at best, and get kicked out at worst; he wasn’t eager to do either. He floated anyway, taking his time to make a decision, until the decision was made for him.

“NARUTO!” a voice bellowed, and the sound of his room doors being kicked down made Sasuke jolt.  _ Shit. _ This was much sooner than he expected having to leave. “You were supposed to be at that meeting TWO DAMN HOURS AGO! Where are you!?”

That was Sakura, it had to be. Sasuke could hop out, get in his clothes and hide. No, there was absolutely nowhere to hide. He could hope she doesn’t check the bathroom?

“If you’re taking a bath right now, I’m going to drown you in it,” she growled, and Sasuke could hear her heavy footsteps stomping his way. There wasn’t much he could do besides dive under the bubbles down to the bottom of the tub, hoping he could hold his breath long enough for her to go away.

He saw the handle click; _Poseidon, why didn’t he think to lock it?_ Sasuke took a last breath and let himself sink down to the bottom of the tub.

He could hear the door swing open and the sound of shoes stepping into the room, but beyond that, nothing else. She wasn’t speaking or moving, most likely just looking around the room. Sasuke’s guess was that he could hold his breath much longer than the average human, and as one minute ticked by and another, he was right. Why she wasn’t doing anything was confusing to him; shouldn’t she be yelling for Naruto somewhere else? He gave it one minute more.

Finally, he heard Sakura sigh. “He’s not in here!” she yelled to whoever must be helping her look, and closed the door. Relief coursed through Sasuke’s body, but he still stayed submerged, just in case Sakura had to come back for any reason. The door stayed closed.

When his poor lungs were finally screaming for air, he broke the surface with a gasp. That had been a far closer call than he’d ever want to experience again.

Sasuke then rubbed the soap out of his eyes and froze. Staring down at him was one Sakura Haruno, door closed behind her, with an expression on her face of pure satisfaction. She jabbed her finger at him and said the absolute last thing he wanted to hear:

“I knew it! I  _ knew _ you were merfolk!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise when I'll post again, but I'll do my best.. Kudos and comments are always appreciated!!

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter has more plot and questions answered, I promise.. Thank you for reading!
> 
> edit: I am a college student and I take classes year round, so I probably won't be posting regularly for a little while. Hopefully soon!!! but who knows


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